


Polar

by ErejeanAnonymous



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Rich Jean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2018-12-07 20:16:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11631108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErejeanAnonymous/pseuds/ErejeanAnonymous
Summary: After learning to live with the loss of his mother, Eren has slowly managed to settle into a normal routine for his life. His daily routine was always the same, with very little change. When, one day, he has to start tutoring the school's rich kid - Jean Kirstein. Slowly but surely, Eren begins to realise that they might not be the polar opposites that he first imagined them to be.





	1. Chapter 1

Life isn’t fair.

That’s something I grasped at pretty early on in life. Why is it that some people are born into a life of luxury, whilst others have to work overtime just to survive? Sure, hard work and talent can get you somewhere in life, but a lot of the time it’s just down to plain luck. That’s just how it is - whether you like it or not.

So, where do I fit in on life’s lucky draw? Well, I live in Britain - lucky. I have two close friends who care about me deeply - lucky. My mother passed away two years ago- well, I’m sure that one can explain itself.

Still, some people would argue that I’m still lucky regardless of what happens in my life, simply because of where I live. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful that I live in a country where I’m able to share my views freely and have access to free healthcare, but I still think it’s pretty rational for me to not be all that thrilled given my situation.

That said, I really can’t stand people who think that no one living in a first world country has the right to ever be sad at all. They’re the type of people who throw around the “Africa card” - as I call it - at least five times each day. You know what I’m talking about; people who respond to any negative comment you have with something along the lines of “oh, but at least you’re not a starving child in Africa!” God, I hate that.

I’ll tell you something right now; Someone is /always/ going to have it worse than you. However, that doesn’t make a shitty situation any less shit. Appreciate what you do have, of course, but know that your reactions to events in your life are valid.

Speaking of shitty situations, I’m actually on my way to one right now. My maths teacher, Mr Ackerman, had told me to come and see him at the start of lunch. I was sure there was no way I could be in any trouble over anything, but he wasn’t exactly the type of person to request your attendance just to give you /good/ news.

I got to his room just as the bell for lunch rang, knowing better than to show up late. The students from his class took a few moments to shuffle their way out of the room but once they were all gone I was able to slip my way inside.  
“You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Ah, Eren,” he responded, moving over to lean back against his desk before gesturing to the space in front of him. “Take a seat. We’re still waiting for someone.”

Someone else was supposed to be coming? Christ, what was this talk even going to be about?

“Alright,” I mumbled, making my way over to the student’s desk in front of where he was standing and taking a seat. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before the third person was coming in and closing the door behind themselves. Though, unthankfully, the person who had walked in was none other than Jean Kirstein.

/You have got to be kidding me./

Okay, so maybe I had never actually had a proper conversation with the guy before but, /fuck/, there was a reason for that. From what I had seen and heard, he was a total egotistical asshole who had everything handed to him his entire life. I mean, he lived up in Shinganshina Estate, for fucks sake. His parents probably had more money than I would ever be able to get in a lifetime.

“Take a seat, Kirstein.”

The blonde reluctantly made his way over to us, his arms folded as he leaned back against the desk to the right of where I was sitting. Even his school uniform looked more expensive than mine, and we were wearing basically the exact same thing. “What’s all this about?”

Ackerman folded his arms and directed his gaze back at him. “This is about the results of your maths GCSE re-sit,” he answered, to which the other just rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I know, I failed. So?”

“So,” he practically growled out, “you’re only here for another six months and then you’ll be finished with school completely. That means you only have one shot left of actually passing this exam.”

Figured that he was the type of person to not care about school at all.

“Uh, Sir,” I started awkwardly. “What does this have to do with me, exactly?”

“You, Eren, are going to be tutoring him,” he answered. I just raised my brows, hoping he’d say he was just kidding. Mr Ackerman wasn’t really the type to kid around, though.

It was obvious that Jean wasn’t all that thrilled about the situation, either, as you could very clearly hear him mutter “for fucks sake” under his breath.

“I didn’t think you'd be excited, so I thought I could give the both of you some motivation,” the teacher continued. “It’s obvious that Kirstein doesn’t care about whether or not he actually passes this exam. So, in six weeks I’m going to give you a mock exam. If there’s no improvement, then I’m taking Eren’s name off of the Edgewood program-“

“What?” I interrupted, my voice raised as I stood up. “That’s not fair!”

Jean looked between us. “Isn’t Edgewood that University-“

“It’s my dream university,” I snapped, shifting my gaze over to Jean. “I’m supposed to be going there in April for a course. They’re going to be offering some of the people going unconditional placements,” I explained, before looking back at Mr Ackerman. “Sir, I have to go on that course.”

“Then I suggest you and Kirstein start working,” he said simply. “Remember, you’ve got six weeks to make a good enough improvement.”

I opened my mouth to continue arguing but I knew it was pointless. There was no arguing with someone like Mr Ackerman; you’d be an idiot to even attempt it. Jean seemed to at least know this already, as he was already walking out the door. Well, either he knew arguing was pointless or he didn’t even care enough to attempt it. Or both.

God, I was fucked.

I quickly made my way out of the class, having to jog a little to catch up with the ass-fuck that I was supposed to start tutoring. “Hey,” I called after him. No response. “Hey!”

He turned around, then, his arms folded. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’? We have to organise this tutoring shit.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m not wasting my time with that. I’m only going to end up failing again, anyway.”

“If you fail, I’m going to get kicked off my program.”

“Not my problem,” he shrugged, then tried to start walking off again. I had to grab onto his wrist to stop him from leaving.

“You think I /want/ to spend my free time teaching you? I’m not happy about this either but we’ve got to do it.”

Jean just glared at me for a few moments, looking as though he was considering whether or not to start throwing punches in my direction. Eventually, he just sighed, tugging his wrist free from my grip. “Alright, fine,” he mumbled. “When are you free?”

I raised my brows, a little surprised he had actually given in. “After school today.”

“Same here, I guess. If you’re making me do this, though, I at least want to do it somewhere I’m comfortable. If you meet me outside the sixth form centre after school, I’ll give you a lift to my place.”

“Sure thing,” I nodded and, after a short silence between the two of us, we went our separate ways.

Yeah. Life isn’t fair.


	2. First Impressions

The official school day ends at 3:15, meaning that Jean and I were supposed to meet each other at 3:15. Being the naive idiot that I was, I had assumed that was actually going to happen. Obviously, that assumption had been wrong.

I didn’t care much for the first few minutes or so. After all, if he had a lesson then it was possible that the teacher would hold back the class or that it would just simply take him awhile to walk to where we were meeting.

When I realised I had been waiting for over ten minutes, I was just about ready to leave. Given Jean’s reputation, I wouldn’t have put it past him to ditch or just forget completely. Before I had the chance to call it quits, however, I spotted the blonde making his way over to me in the distance.

“You ready to go?” He asked calmly, with no sense of urgency or apology in his voice. Dick.

“Yeah, have been for the past ten minutes,” I responded, offering the fakest smile that I could as I said it. He just rolled his eyes in response.

Without saying anything else, I followed Jean to the school’s parking lot. Unsurprisingly enough, he led me to a sleek, black BMW, which was most definitely not second hand. Christ, I barely had enough money to catch the public bus on the weekends and this guy already had his first car.

We didn’t say much on the ride over to his place, instead allowing the silence to be filled with music coming from the radio. I realised that I really hadn’t been paying attention to what was popular or not since I barely recognised the songs playing. It wasn’t that I disliked mainstream music; I just hadn’t been paying much attention to it.

It didn’t take too long to reach Jean’s street, only about ten minutes or so. I found myself staring out of the window, eyes wide in awe at just how massive and well-kept all of the houses were. I shifted my gaze forward when Jean turned the car in to park in his driveway which, by itself, already seemed to be bigger than my apartment.

I hopped out of the passenger seat, tugging my bag strap over my shoulder as I looked around the area. The house was massive - at least three stories. It was clearly relatively new but the whole aesthetic was more old than modern. There also seemed to be a large patch of land behind the house, though I really couldn’t see all that much of it from where I was standing.

“You coming?”

I moved my attention back to Jean, who was already opening up the front door, and I gave a short nod in answer before making my way over to him. He shut the door behind us, and I couldn’t help but continue eyeing up his home. It really did look incredible, and the interior was even nicer than the exterior. Again, it seemed to look more old-fashioned, with most of the furniture being wooden.

Jean led me upstairs to a room which seemed to be some sort of study room, though looking around it seemed that he mostly used it for art rather than actual written work. He pulled up a chair at his desk and, after a few more moments of looking around, I sat down beside him.

“How long are we planning on spending doing this, exactly?”

I shrugged. “I guess we’ll just try to get through one topic,” I mumbled, looking around in my bag for a sheet showing what Jean needed to know for his syllabus. “What exactly did you get in your exam?”

“Got a U,” he answered, and he must have noticed my slight change in expression because then he was saying, “don’t give me that look. I’m not thick, you know. I just had a lot on my mind at the time.”

“I never thought you were thick,” I mumbled, though I couldn’t help but wonder how having a lot on his mind had prevented him from passing the exam for two years running. I decided to not ask questions about it, though.

After finding the sheet with the syllabus on it, I gave it a quick glance-over before grabbing my notebook and a pen. “You’re taking the foundation course, right?”

He gave a short nod. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, glancing over at the syllabus sheet again before returning my focus to Jean. “Is there anything in particular that you want to start with or…?”

“I don’t care. Just whatever is easiest, I guess.”

“Okay,” I repeated, picking something random from the sheet and writing an example question down, just to see if Jean had any idea on how to do it, or if he even recognised the type of question. He said that he vaguely remembered learning it but otherwise had no memory of it. I spent the following hour trying to walk him through the process of answering it.

By the time he was able to answer similar questions on his own (and actually get the answers mostly right), it was obvious that we both just wanted to be done for the day. I started packing up my stuff, trying to ignore the fact that Jean was watching me as I did so.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, and I couldn’t help but raise my brows slightly at the seemingly out-of-nowhere question.

I looked up at him, closing the zips on my bag and sitting up straight again. “I guess.”

He nodded. “Do you want something to eat, then? We could order pizza or something.”

“Uh, sure,” I answered, my tone rising slightly from confusion. I honestly thought that he was going to kick me out the moment I finished tutoring him for the day. I wouldn’t have really blamed him if he had. “I don’t have any money on me, though, so…”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on making you pay for it,” he said, before standing up. “I’m sure we have a flyer pinned up in the kitchen. We can get a half and half, so you can have whatever you want on it.”

Hesitantly, I nodded. “Okay,” I said, standing up. “Sounds good.”

We eventually settled on a half-pepperoni, half-Hawaiian pizza, with Italian crust. My side was pepperoni, of course. I gave Jean shit for being pro-pineapple on pizza. I just don’t think that any fruit other than tomato belongs on it. Each to their own, though, I guess.

There was a short moment of awkward silence after Jean hung up the phone after ordering the pizza. It was going to take a good half hour or so for it to get to his place and since we barely knew each other I didn’t think either of us were really sure on how we were going to pass the time. I still couldn’t quite even understand why he had asked me to stay.

“Let’s go play some video games or something,” he finally spoke up, waiting for me to give a nod of approval before making his way upstairs. He opened up the door to his bedroom, which seemed rather small and simple compared the rest of the house. The furniture consisted of a bed, a wardrobe, and some nightstands. It was ridiculously clean and neat, though something told me that was more because Jean was rarely ever in there rather than him actually being a tidy person.

Jean opened up a door that was next to his wardrobe, which I originally hadn’t even caught sight of. Behind it, was a wooden staircase, which I curiously followed Jean up. My eyes widened slightly as we reached the top, and I slowly scanned the area in awe.

It was a large attic room, which I could only seem to compare to a teens dream hangout from some Hollywood film. The ceiling consisted of wooden panels, which matched the wood flooring, and altogether kept to the house’s olden aesthetic. In the center of the room was a large sofa, which was facing one of those curved TVs that somehow seemed to be larger than the sofa itself.

On the furthest side of the room was a desk with a computer on top of it. What I loved most, though, was the small section to the right of the staircase. There were a few large bookshelves, which seemed to have everything from modern day fiction to Shakespeare, and even some manga and non-fiction books too. My favourite part was the bean bags situated in front of the shelves. It seemed like the perfect area to escape reality.

“Games are in the cupboard over there,” he directed. “You can pick out whatever.”

I gave a short nod and made my way over to the cupboard, which was stacked full of video games and old DVDs. I wasn’t really sure what to pick out. I didn’t exactly have any money to spare on video games, so the only ones I had played were the ones at Mikasa’s house, which mainly consisted of Mario Kart.

Unsure of what to pick, I just grabbed whatever seemed the most interesting before handing the disc to Jean so he could sort it all out. We sat down on the sofa together, and Jean handed me an Xbox controller.

“Main game?” Jean asked as the opening screen started playing.

I shrugged. “I’ve never played before so I’m fine with whatever.”

He nodded and started going through the game’s settings. “Are video games not usually your type of thing, then?”

“Video games are expensive, and expensive things aren’t my type of thing.”

“Fair enough, then,” he mumbled, before dropping the subject and just getting straight in to teaching me the controls. He also gave me a quick rundown of the objective (which, in summary, was to just kill zombies). We played the main game (thank fuck), which meant that we were working together. I say ‘thank fuck’ because - and this was to be expected - I wasn’t all that great.

Still, it was pretty enjoyable.

Just under half an hour later, we heard the doorbell ringing through the house. Jean gave a short groan before standing up, grabbing some money from his wallet before dropping it onto the sofa and making his way downstairs. Out of pure curiosity, I reached over to his discarded wallet, opening it up to check out its contents.

“Fucking hell,” I mumbled quietly to myself, flicking through the notes without removing them. There had to be at least 200 quid in there, and it seemed that it was just casual spending money. Part of me was screaming to take a couple, doubting that he’d ever realise anyway, but I knew better than to steal from my - well, were we friends now? Anyway, I wasn’t going to steal. I wasn’t that desperate — yet.

I placed the wallet back on the sofa just a few moments before Jean came back into the room.

“Okay, so I just grabbed some coke ‘cause I didn’t know what you liked. If you want something else, there’s more downstairs.”

“Coke is fine,” I said, sitting up a little as I watched him place everything on the coffee table in front of us. He poured us both a glass before sitting down beside me again, pulling his feet up so he was sitting cross legged and turning to face me a little.

“So,” he started, his voice muffled slightly as he took a bite of his pizza. I still couldn’t quite get over the fact that he was pro-pineapple. “What exactly possessed you to make you decide to take maths for A-level.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “It’s not actually that awful when you know what you’re doing,” I said, reaching over to grab a slice. “Besides, maths is basically the only thing I’m good at so…” I trailed off, shrugging. “What subjects are you doing, anyway?”

“Art, geology, English Lit,” he listed off, and I hummed softly as I listened.

“Yeah, I saw all your supplies in your study room earlier.”

He shrugged. “There aren’t many in that room, really. I do most of my art down in the basement.”

“Of course,” I snorted, shaking my head a little as I laughed. He raised his brows slightly at me. “Nothing, nothing. Just… It’s a big house, y’know?”

“Ah,” he said, reaching over to get another slice. “I know. Thought I may as well use up all the space, though.”

I nodded. “What about your family? Do they just not need much space?”

He seemed to freeze for a moment at my question, his gaze set down at his food. After a few moments, he spoke up. “Not really. It’s only my me and my mum living here, so…” He shrugged.

I gave a short nod, wanting to ask about his dad but deciding not to push it too much. “Is she at work right now, then?”

He just sighed, then, starting to sound a little agitated. “Can we just talk about something else?”

“‘Course,” I said, giving a quick nod along with my answer. I hadn’t meant to overstep in any way. “I should probably ask now - how often do you want to do these tutoring sessions? We only have six weeks for now, so I was thinking that at least twice a week would be good.”

Jean nodded. “Sure. Are Mondays and Thursdays good for you?”

“Yeah, alright,” I agreed, and with that settled we simply returned to eating our food, occasionally making small talk between slices. Once we finished eating, I realised that there wasn’t too much reason for me to stay any longer, though I really didn’t mind it. I checked my wristwatch. It was already almost six.

“Do you have a curfew or something?” Jean asked, and I shook my head in answer. I lived alone, so there really was no reason for me needing to be home by a certain time. “Do you want to stay here for a little longer, then?”

I paused for a moment in thought, before giving another shake of my head. “Nah. I should probably get going - I’ve gotta do a psychology essay for tomorrow.” Jean nodded, and I couldn’t tell for sure but I swore I could see disappointment in his eyes. “Is it alright if you give me a lift? I don’t really have any money for the bus or a taxi or anything…”

“‘Course,” he said, a faint smile forming on his lips. “No problem.”


	3. Disagreements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) is a small amount of money that students in sixth form get from the government if they meet specific criteria (e.g low family income). Low attendance or misbehaviour can lead to the allowance being withheld

Oddly enough, I actually found myself quite looking forward to my next tutoring session with Jean. Really, the only reason I was so reluctant in doing it in the first place was that I thought the guy was going to just be some rich little brat. Sure, he was no Armin (who was the kindest person I had ever had the pleasure of meeting), but he wasn’t as bad as I thought he’d be, either.

Mikasa - my other closest friend - seemed to think differently.

“Listen, all I’m saying is that I don’t trust him,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and sitting down opposite me. Her, Armin and I were sitting together in the corner of the sixth form center which, unfortunately, was pretty full due to the poor weather outside.

“Good thing you’re not the one being forced to tutor him, then,” I mumbled, leaning back in my seat. I moved my gaze over to Armin, who was quietly eating a sandwich from his packed lunch. My stomach growled, and I sighed lightly from the noise.

“Did you forget your lunch again, Eren?” He asked, looking over at me with concern clear in his eyes.

“Not exactly,” I muttered. “I was meant to get my EMA* over the weekend but the school postponed it.” I didn’t bother mentioning that it was because I had been showing up late to school on most days; I really didn’t want my mood ruined by another one of Mikasa’s rants.

Armin shook me by the shoulder a little. “Eren! You should have told us. Have you been eating at home?”

Rolling my eyes, I nudged his hand off of me. “Christ, yes, don’t worry. I just don’t have anything that I could bring to school with me.”

“Here,” Mikasa said, taking out half of a sandwich from her lunchbox before sliding the rest over to me. “You need to eat.”

“I’m fine, Mika,” I assured, pushing the box back to her. I really didn’t feel like eating - especially not with Armin and Mikasa staring at me with pity clear on their faces.

“Eat,” she repeated, her voice sterner this time, as she pushed the box back in my direction.

“I said, I’m fine,” I responded, pushing it back again. She narrowed her eyes at me a little, and I could already feel the agitation bubbling up inside me as I awaited the next word to leave her lips.

“Eat-“

“No,” I interrupted, my teeth grit together as I spoke. Armin’s uncomfortableness was clear as Mikasa and I stared each other down. I let out an irritated sigh before grabbing my backpack and standing up, my gaze set forward as I walked out of the building.

I knew I was overreacting, but I’d rather just walk away and allow myself to cool down than attempt to bottle up my emotions, which would only lead to an even more ridiculous outburst. I couldn’t even tell why I was suddenly so on edge. Everything seemed to be getting on my nerves today. I was so stuck in my head, I didn’t even notice what was in front of me, and ended up walking straight into some dumb-

Oh.

Jean.

He looked like he was about to start ranting at me, but his expression softened a little once he properly looked down at me. He raised a brow speaking up, his voice low.

“You okay, man?”

I just shrugged, not wanting to have to stop and talk to anyone at that moment. Before he could say anything else, I started walking off again, sighing softly as I heard him call out, “See you after school, then!”

Despite my easily agitated mood, I did ensure that I was on time to meet Jean for our second tutoring session together. Unlike a few days ago, he was actually there on time, as well. We didn’t speak that much on the way there, again and, like last time, the house was pretty empty. It made me wonder more about his mum - I guessed she probably had to work relatively long hours to afford a place like theirs'.

“Why do you think Ackerman chose you?” Jean asked, catching me off guard a little. I’d zoned out whilst he was working on some questions I’d given him.

“What do you mean?”

“For tutoring me,” he explained, not bothering to glance up as he spoke. “Anyone in your class is obviously good enough at maths to do it. Why’d he pick on you?”

“Guess I was just the easiest to threaten,” I mumbled, leaning back in my seat and staring down at Jean’s paper. “Going on that course really is important for me and, unlike everyone else, I don’t exactly have parents that’d make complaints if he did take me off it.”

Jean gave a short nod as he listened, looking as though he was trying to think of something to say. I just sighed, leaning over and checking out his work before he had the chance to speak again. “You’ve gotta remember to do the same thing to both sides of the equation,” I said, glad to go over a few areas to prevent him from asking any personal questions.

We decided to call it a day when we saw that it had already been over ninety minutes. I started packing up my things, not missing how Jean was watching me as I did so.

“Do you want my number?” He asked, pausing for a moment as I glanced up at him, my brows slightly raised. “Just in case I ever have to cancel last minute or anything.”

“Uh, well I would,” I started, finishing up putting everything in my bag before sitting up again. “Only problem is I don’t have a phone.”

It was his turn to raise his brows, then. “Why not?”

I shrugged. “Accidentally broke it a few months ago. Didn't have the money to fix it and didn't see the need to just get a cheap flip phone.”

“Ah,” he murmured, nodding a little. I wondered if he even understood the concept of not being able to afford something. “Hey,” he started again, “what was with you earlier, anyway?”

Great. More questions.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, standing up and shrugging my backpack over my shoulders. “Just having one of those days, I guess.”

He nodded again, standing up too. “Yeah, I get you,” he said, and I couldn’t help but snicker slightly. He furrowed his brows a little. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said, shaking my head a little. “Just that, well, you don’t exactly have a hard life, do you?”

His voice turned harsh, then. “The fuck?”

“Dude, come on, just look around you,” I said, my tone turning a little more aggressive. “Unlike you, I don’t have mummy and daddy to run to when I need cash. What the hell do you have to worry about?”

“Just because I live in a big house and drive a nice car doesn’t mean my life is perfect,” he practically growled, taking a step closer.

“Listen, I’m just saying-“  
“No, you’re just assuming,” he interrupted, walking forward and backing me up against the wall. “You just saw the nice neighbourhood and expensive things and assumed that everything in my life is perfect!-”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“No!” He shouted, his face only inches away from my own. He stayed there for a few moments, his breathing heavy and his hands formed into fists at his sides. Neither of us made any movement, though it was clear he was having to hold himself back from hitting me. I didn’t get what his fucking problem was. His outburst seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Eventually, he took a step back, a shaky breath slipping past his lips as he did so. “Get out,” he said, his words sounding rough. When I made no attempt to move, he spoke again, his voice raised. “Get out!”

I let out a shaky breath before turning around and stomping out of the room. “Rich prick,” I muttered, making a point to slam his front door shut as I left. To make the whole situation worse, I still had no money and no phone, meaning I was going to have to walk all the way back to my shitty apartment.

Fuck Jean. He knew nothing about me.


	4. Guilt

It took me just over forty minutes to walk all the way back to my place. Luckily, my anger towards Jean allowed the time to pass somewhat quickly. The more I thought about him, the more pissed off I got. I was having to walk home in the rain because I had no money and no phone to ask someone for a lift, and he was trying to talk about how difficult his life was.

Fuck that. I refused to believe that his life was anything but easy.

When I got home, I just grabbed a bowl of cereal and watched whatever I could find on Netflix (Mikasa, being the blessing that she was, had given me her account details). I’d a few unread Facebook messages from Armin and Mika, but I just ignored them. They were usually able to calm me down once the heat of the moment had passed, but I didn’t really want them to calm me down. I just wanted to keep being pissed at Jean.

Probably one of the only perks of Sixth Form was that we didn’t have as many lessons and, thankfully for me, it meant that on some days I didn’t have to come in at all. Every other Friday, I was able to stay home all day and procrastinate doing school work. Conveniently enough, that Friday happened to be the following day.

I ended up sleeping in until midday. Part of me wanted to just sleep for the whole three days and not socialise at all, but I knew better than to do that. Although I loved my alone time, it definitely can do me more bad than good if I stay on my own for an extended period of time. As well as that, I also knew that if I didn’t respond to Mikasa sometime soon, she’d probably come over and break down the door just to make sure I’m okay.

So, I sent her a quick message to let her know I wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere, and then reluctantly agreed to meet up with her and Armin. Within half an hour I managed to drag myself out of bed, shower, and get dressed. I didn’t put much effort into my appearance, just throwing on a shirt, black jeans, a jacket and some old combat boots. I grabbed my key just before leaving, hanging it back around my neck with the string it was attached to after locking the door.

Armin came and picked me up at around one o’ clock, thankfully having finished all of his lessons for the day. We drove down to town before getting out and making the rest of our journey on foot. We were headed to Scouts - a small cafe at the corner of a street, which we usually went to together at least once a fortnight.

Mikasa was already there when we arrived, sitting at our usual table with three drinks waiting for us. She often bought both of our drinks, knowing that I’d be less likely to object than if she just bought one for me. I hated feeling so dependent on others.

“Hey, Mika,” Armin greeted, smiling sweetly as he took a seat at the table. I sat down beside him, mumbling out a greeting of my own. We just did some small talk for a little while, but it wasn’t too long before Mikasa was throwing questions at me about the day before.

“Why weren’t you answering my texts? Were you still upset about what happened at lunch?”

I sighed. She always seemed to take our arguments to heart, no matter how small it was.

“No. I just wasn’t in the mood for talking to anyone.”

“Did something happen with Jean?” Armin piped in.

“Did he do something to you?”

“Fucking hell, nothing serious happened. He just got pissy for no reason and then chucked me out of his house.”

Armin gave a heavy sigh, shaking his head a little. “What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did anything?”

“Eren,” he repeated, and I just rolled my eyes.

“All I said was that he didn’t have anything that he needed to worry about because he can actually afford everything,” I answered, before furrowing my brows as the two shared a glance after listening. “What? What is it?”

“Jean’s mum is in the hospital,” Armin said slowly.

I raised my brows. “What for?” I asked, my voice a little quieter, before rising again. “How the hell do you know everything?”

“I overheard one of the teachers talking about it,” Mikasa shrugged. “I don’t know why she’s there, though.”

“Just because he’s wealthy doesn’t mean his life is perfect,” Armin said softly, the look in his eyes making me feel a little guilty.

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that his mum is in the hospital,” I snapped back defensively, but I think we all knew that I was starting to feel bad about it. To be honest, I think I was almost disappointed to find out that Jean’s life wasn’t so perfect. I think I just wanted to have an excuse to stay mad at someone.

After a few more disapproving glances, we managed to settle back into a different conversation topic. At the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen with me and Jean. I doubted that my pride would let me apologise to him, and I didn’t think he’d want me to bring attention to his mother, anyway. Fuck, what if he refused to continue the tutoring sessions with me? I doubted that he’d care about me losing a place on that course anymore - not like he really did in the first place.

Fuck it. There was no point wasting time thinking about it. So, instead, I tried my best to push the thoughts out of my head completely, deciding to leave it for my future self to deal with.

Fast forward three days, and I was having to do just that - deal with it. I had pretty much spent all of Monday morning avoiding Jean, which was easy enough, but then lunch time rolled around and I had the unfortunate luck of bumping into Mr Ackerman (in a non-literal sense, of course.)

“Ah, Eren, how’s it going with Kirstein?” He asked, and I had to stifle a groan as I moved off to the side of the hallway to speak to him.

“Alright, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well, the sessions we’ve had so far have been good.”

“And when are you having your next session, exactly?”

I opened my mouth to answer but just closed it again, my lips pressing together as I tried to think of an answer. I didn’t even know if there was going to be a ‘next session’. “Uh, not sure.”

He gave an exasperated look, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Jaeger, I can usually tell when students are trying to bullshit me. Are you actually even doing these tutoring sessions with him?”

I hesitated again, then, and it was so painfully obvious that I was clueless in what to say.

He gave a short sigh. “I don’t go back on my word, you know. You will be taken of that course if he doesn’t-“

“Eren!”

Ackerman and I glanced over to the source of the interruption, only to find none other than Jean Kirstein making his way over to us.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he directed at the other before looking at me instead. “We’re still on for after school, right?”

I just stared at him for a few moments, trying to figure out why he was helping me out. I snapped myself out of it when I realised I had yet to answer, and gave a short nod.

“Right! Yeah. We’re still on,” I confirmed, both of us glancing over at Mr Ackerman, waiting for him to say something.

He raised his brows slightly, glancing between us for a moment before rolling his eyes and starting to walk away. “You now have five weeks,” he reminded us, before walking off completely. As soon as he was more than a few meters away, Jean’s whole demeanour changed, like he was relaxed in his natural self again.

He was about to start walking off again before I stopped him.

“Wait. We are actually on for after school, right?”

He grunted, stopping in place and turning around slightly to look at me. “Yeah, assuming you can come still.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I can come,” I confirmed, and I quickly spoke up again as he looked like he was going to walk off. “We’re cool, right?”

“‘Course,” he said, and I was surprised at how relieved it seemed to make me. “So, I’ll see you in a few hours, then?”

I smiled slightly. “Yeah. See you then.”


	5. Disruption

“Jean,” I started, glancing over at him from where I sat in the passenger’s seat. We were on our way to his place for a tutoring session and, like usual, we had spent most of the ride in silence. He gave a hum in acknowledgement, keeping his gaze set on the road. “Thanks for earlier.”

He raised his brows slightly, briefly glancing my way. “Yeah, no problem,” he murmured. “Listen, about-,” he sighed when he was cut off by the sound of his phone going off. “Could you grab that for me? It’s in my bag.”

“Sure,” I nodded, reaching over to grab his bag from the back seat. I hummed softly when I found it, pulling it out of the front pocket. “Says someone called Petra Ral is calling.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, chewing on his lip and holding his hand out in my direction. “Give it here.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to use your phone whilst driving.”

“Oh, for fucks- okay, fine, just hold it to my ear, then.”

“I still don’t think that’s-“

“Christ, Eren, just do it, will ya?”

I didn’t say anything in response, instead just giving in and holding the phone up to his ear. I’d be lying if I denied trying to listen in on the conversation, though it really didn’t matter because I couldn’t hear a thing that the person on the other end was saying. At first, I just figured that it was some girl that Jean was seeing, but that idea was proved wrong almost immediately.

“Hello?” Jean answered, before sighing softly as the other person responded. “Hey, ma,” he said, seeming so much more relaxed than he had been before. “Yeah, I’m fine… Yeah, yeah, of course… Okay, see you soon… Love you too.”

I slowly pulled the phone away from him, glancing down at the screen and watching as the call ended.

“We’re gonna have to make a detour,” he said, turning off from the usual route to his house. “It won’t be too long. You okay to wait in the car for a bit?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, looking him over as I spoke. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” he answered. “Can we not talk about it?”

“Sure,” I said, giving a nod. I kept my gaze stuck on him for a few moments before sighing in defeat and reaching over to turn the radio up a little. He didn’t want to talk about his mother, and I didn’t see a point in just making conversation for the sake of filling the silence.

I stared out of the window with Jean’s phone still held loosely in my hand, noting the dark clouds starting to gather up in the sky. My brows furrowed when we passed the town’s hospital, but I decided not to voice my confusion. I really didn’t understand, though. Jean had said that it wouldn’t take long, and the next hospital was forever away…

He ended up parking the car around 15 minutes after he had received the phone call. I glanced out of the window, still as confused as before. I didn’t recognise the building that we were parked by.

“Just stay here, yeah?” Jean said, waiting for me to look over at him before speaking again. “Keep my phone so I can just call you if I need to stay longer or something.”

He barely even waited for me to nod my head in response before he was out of the car, which was probably fair enough given his situation - whatever it was.

Even though he had told me to wait in the car, I just couldn’t manage to shake my curiosity. Less than five minutes after he’d left, I was out of the vehicle and making my way around to the front of the building with Jean’s phone still in hand. It wasn’t long before I managed to find a sign, placed just outside of the building's grounds.

Humming softly, I made my way over to it, expecting to see the name of some private doctor’s. My eyes widened slightly when I read what was written, the guilt I felt because I said he had an easy life flooding back in me.

It was a psychiatric hospital.

I couldn’t tell if that made me feel more or less guilty than if it had been a regular hospital. Either way, though, I still felt extremely bad for what I had said to him.

I didn’t really know what to do, then, just kind of standing there unsurely. The obvious answer was to go back to the car and wait for Jean to return. For whatever reason, though, I started walking over to the main entrance to the building. Looking around the reception area, I stood there for a few moments, just looking lost, until someone approached me.

“Are you alright there?”

I turned around, meeting the gaze of a short lady with strawberry blonde hair. She was smiling sweetly at me, and it actually seemed genuine.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. My friend just came in her to visit someone…” I trailed off a little, not really sure what else to say. There was no reason for me to be there.

“Oh! Are you a friend of Jean?” She asked, her smile widening slightly as I nodded. “Seems like he finally listened to me, then. I’ve been telling him for so long that he shouldn’t feel the need to hide all of this from his friends,” she said, walking over to the front desk before returning to me with a clipboard and pen in hand. “Here. You’ll have to sign in-“

“Oh, I’m not…” I trailed off again, deciding to just take the clipboard from her as it was handed to me, signing in all the requirements.

“I’ll take you over to where he is now, then. Linda has been asking him to bring his friends for her to meet them for so long,” she smiled, taking the clipboard and returning it to the desk.

I furrowed my brows slightly. Who was Linda? Was that his mother’s name? “Oh, I don’t know if he’ll really want me there…”

“Don’t be ridiculous! This will be good for the both of them,” she said, handing me a visitors' pass. As I was putting it around my neck, I glanced back down at her staff badge, this time reading the name that was on it.

Petra Ral…

Did Jean’s mother use her phone to call him earlier, then? Was she not allowed her own phone? Given the way Petra was acting, it seemed like the staff here were all a lot more relaxed than I would have anticipated - or maybe it was just her.

I followed her down the hallways, occasionally glancing back and considering if I’d be able to just run off. I knew Jean didn’t want me to be there with him - why would he?

“They’ll be on one of the benches through here,” she said, opening the door to a small outside area. She let me go through before walking in front of me again, leading me over to where Jean was sitting with his mother.

Jean was the first to notice me, of course, standing up as soon as he laid his eyes on me. He sounded like he was trying not to show how pissed off he was with me. “Eren?”

“Is this one of your friends, Jeanbo?”

Jeanbo

I looked over to his mother, who was looking over at me with a smile. She looked really friendly - though, there wasn't really much of a visible resemblance with Jean. I couldn’t help but wonder why she was here. She looked - well, happy. I didn’t know what was wrong with her but I guess it wasn’t really my business, anyway.

“I’ll leave you three be, then,” Petra said, before making her way back inside.

I looked over at Jean apologetically before going over to sit down beside him, opposite his mother.

Jean slowly sat back down, too. We both looked over at his mother when she spoke again. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, Eren,” I answered, flicking my gaze between the two of them. I definitely wasn’t looking forward to what Jean would say when we’re alone again.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Eren,” she said, smiling over at me. “Can you believe that Jeanbo here has never brought any of his friends to meet me before?”

“That’s-“

“I just don’t see why I would,” Jean interrupted, his voice tight but still sounding somewhat gentle.

His mother - Linda - shook her head a little. “If I were at home, I would have met your friends before.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not home, are you?” His tone sounded more irritated now. I chewed nervously on my lip.

“Jean,” she said softly, giving a quiet sigh and leaning forward. She reached her hand out in Jean’s direction, resting it on the table. “You know your father thinks it’s best if I stay here-“

“No. Dad just wants to keep you here because he pays for it and it makes him feel like he’s actually helping out for once,” Jean retorted, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table. He looked like he was trying to keep himself relatively calm, though I wasn’t sure if it was just because he didn’t want to make a scene or if he just didn’t want to fight with his mother.

There was a short silence, only broken by Jean sighing. “Eren, go wait in the car.”

I kept my gaze on him, wondering what was going through his mind. He was staring down at the table, his hands clenched into fists. Even though he looked far from calm, he thankfully didn’t look too tense either.

Before I made any attempt to move, his mother was speaking up again. “Oh, relax, Jean. I’m sure your friend can stay a little longer - he did just get here, after all.”

“Eren. Car. Now,” he said, his tone sterner this time.

I just nodded in response, turning my attention to his mum as I stood up. “It was nice to meet you,” I said gently, before turning and making my way back to the main entrance. After signing out, I returned to the car, choosing to wait outside it. I leaned back against it, Jean’s phone still held tightly in hand.

Twice. I’d fucked up twice, now. Jean had actually looked like he was having a nice time talking with him mum before I showed up. God, why can’t I just learn to leave things alone?

And, yet, I was still curious. I wanted to know more about Jean and his life.

The whole event seemed so rushed that I hadn’t fully processed it yet. I couldn’t imagine that Jean would do anything but shout at me when he gets here - or, worse, he could just say nothing at all. He might just keep in a frustrated silence that I know I’d be too afraid to break.

A solid ten minutes or so had passed by the time Jean rejoined me by the car. He looked tense as he made his way over to me, his jaw clenched tightly. We might eye contact for a split second before he looked away, his gaze set over my shoulder. I opened my mouth to say something - what exactly, I didn’t even know - but Jean interrupted me before any words even came out of my mouth.

“Get in the car,” he said, his calm tone contrasting his body language. For once, I didn’t argue, complying silently and getting in the passenger seat. Jean switched on the ignition, increasing the volume on the radio loud enough so that neither of us could hear the other if they spoke, before pulling out of the parking lot.

I looked him over for awhile, as though doing so would tell me what was running through his mind. Eventually, I gave up, turning my attention to the scenery whizzing past us out of the window. It wasn’t long before we reached his house, parking outside just as usual.

I followed him inside, my brows knitting together in confusion as we made our way upstairs to the study. Jean sat down at the desk, not saying a word as he took out a notepad from his bag. I stayed standing in the doorway for a moment, silently watching him before speaking up, my voice calm and low.

“What are we doing?”

For the first time since back in the car park, he met my gaze, giving me a look that made it difficult to argue with him. “We’re having our tutoring session like we planned,” he said simply, as though nothing had happened at all.

There was another moment of silence, then, because I couldn’t quite figure out how to word a response. I eventually walked over to sit beside him at the desk, awkwardly getting out the work I had planned for him, the only sound to comfort the awkward shuffling being the rain starting to pour outside. He took the sheet of questions without giving me a second glance, his brows furrowing together slightly as he stared down at the page.

“It’s not as difficult as it looks,” I assured with a quiet voice, before tugging the papers away from him to copy down the first question. I attempted to explain how to answer it, but it was obvious that everything was going right over Jean’s head. I sighed, stopping mid-explanation and staring down at the sheet. “Aren’t we going to talk about this?”

“Nothing to talk about,” he muttered, his gaze set down on the work. “Just get on with teaching me the rest of this method or whatever.”

“Jean, there’s no point in forcing through it if you can’t even concentrate enough to actually absorb the information.”

He remained silent, still refusing to look up at me. The tips of his fingers fiddled restlessly with a bent corner of his page, and I could almost feel the restlessness radiating off of him. I considered my options for a moment, trying to, for once, actually think things through before running my mouth. I wanted to ask him about his mother - how long she’d been there, what had happened, if he’d talked to anyone about it. I chose to reserve those questions for the moment, though.

“Are you okay?” I asked, instead. The question seemed to catch him off guard, almost, his fingers freezing before returning to their previous actions. I almost gave up, figuring he wasn’t going to answer and knowing better than to ask him twice. He eventually looked up, though, catching my gaze for a fragment of a second before looking a down again.

“Just don’t tell anyone,” he murmured slowly.

“Yeah, sure, of course, but, Jean,” I leaned forward slightly, “have you told anyone?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He snapped his gaze back up at me, his eyes narrowed. “Just because she’s crazy doesn’t mean I am too - I don’t have to see a fucking shrink over this.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant - don’t any of your friends know about this?”

“No, they don’t. And I don’t want them to, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because if they don’t know about anything then they won’t ask about anything.”

“But-“

“Fuck, Eren, take a hint; I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped, shaking his head a little before standing up. “I think you should just go,” he mumbled and, as if on queue, a crash of thunder crackled outside, catching our attention. The rain had gotten a hell of a lot heavier since I last noticed it.

Jean’s expression looked tense as he stared out of the window, seeming to be considering something before turning away from me again.

“Just stay out of the basement,” he mumbled quietly in defeat, lingering back as he spoke before walking off, leaving me alone.


	6. Cheers

“I thought I told you to stay out of the basement.” 

I froze at the bottom of the stairs, my gaze stuck on Jean on the opposite side of the room. I didn’t even know how he’d noticed me - he was facing the other direction and he had his headphones in, playing music that I could hear even from where I was standing.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, unsure if he would hear that, as well. He didn’t say anything else, instead focusing on whatever he was doing. I took a moment to look around, amazed by what I saw. The room was practically covered in artwork - paintings, drawings, sculptures… Hell, even the walls themselves had patterns running across them.

The artwork itself was astounding. I’m sure I could remember Jean mentioning using the basement for his art before, and I knew he was good, but /fuck/, this was just insane.

Still scanning the contents of the room, I made my way over to the other, my eyes widening a little when I turned my gaze to what he was working on.

“Is that a Cintiq?” I asked, still staring down at the large, interactive drawing tablet sitting on Jean’s desk. He gave a short nod, keeping his head down but at least removing his earphones so he could listen to me.

“Didn’t know you were into art.”

“Oh, I’m not,” I said, turning around to lean back against the desk a little. “My mum was, though. She mainly did paintings but she did some digital art, too - not with anything as fancy as this, though.”

“That’s definitely understandable.”

“Yeah,” I said blankly, caught in a short state of reminiscence before quickly shaking myself out of my thoughts. “What are you working on, anyway?”

“Nothing,” he said, as if it was an automatic response. After a moment, he sighed, slumping back in his seat before saying, “come look.”

I moved over so I was standing beside him, looking down at the large screen in front of me. He tapped a button before leaning back again. The section of the screen he’d been working on turned black for a few seconds, before transitioning to an image of the sky, panning downwards.

The following 60 seconds showcased a heart-warming animation, featuring a little kid no older than five. There was no sound, of course, and the animation itself wasn’t finished, but I still loved what I saw.

“That looked amazing,” I breathed, and I swore I heard a breath of relief slip past Jean’s lips.

“You really think so? It’s nowhere near done, and I still haven’t even figured out who I can get to do the voiceover, but I’ve been trying to make it as good as it can be.”

“It’s brilliant,” I assured. “What’s it for?”

“I’m hoping to use it in my portfolio if it’s good enough. I’ve been thinking about going to study animation at university.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I just really like the idea of being able to create something for people, you know? Like, actually being able to make an impact on people’s lives - even if it’s just by bringing them some form of emotion through a video or something.”

“That’s - really cool, actually,” I said, his words surprising me, slightly. I’d never heard him sound so genuine before, and I wondered if he ever opened up like that to anyone else.

The room was filled with silence, then, with Jean staring blankly at the screen and me watching him carefully. I was about to walk off to leave him be when he spoke up again.

“You can stay here if you want,” he said, slowly leaning forward to work again as he continued speaking. “It’s nice to have some company, for a change.”

My lips turned up into a soft smile, and I found myself nodding in response without even thinking about it. Jean nodded as well, quickly glancing up at me before looking away again as he stood up.

“I’ll go grab you a chair from upstairs. Or you could just use mine. But I’ll need to get another for me, anyway, so… Yeah. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, watching as he left the room. I wasn’t sure if I was just imagining it or not, but he seemed to be acting differently to usual. He was just so much more… Quiet? Vulnerable? Maybe he was just naturally more relaxed in this room. Or, maybe it was because I hadn’t brought up anything that made him uncomfortable for the duration of our time down here.

Jean was taking a little longer than I had expected, so I ended up sitting down at his desk and spinning carelessly in his chair. I could see why Jean spent so much time down here.

Another few moments passed by before I heard Jean’s footsteps coming down on the wooden steps. I spun around to look at him, watching as he effortlessly carried a wooden stall in one hand and a couple of glass bottles in the other.

“Drink?” He asked, placing his chair down beside me and holding out one of the bottles for me to take.

“You know,” I started, taking the pre-opened glass as it was handed to me, “I’ve never been friends with anyone before who /actually/ drinks beer casually.”

He just shrugged. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t expect that. Mikasa and Armin don’t exactly look the type.”

I raised my brows slightly, taking a small sip of my drink as I watched him start to work on his animation again. “I didn't think you really knew them.”

“Everyone knows them. I mean, Mikasa is Head Girl, after all, and isn’t Armin one of the senior prefects or something?”

“Ah. Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Everyone in the sixth form had to know Armin and Mika, now that I thought about it. I wondered if Jean had known who I was as well, then. Maybe he just knew me as that guy who hangs around with them. I guess that summed me up pretty well, anyway.

“Mind if I put on some music?”

I nodded, and Jean pulled out his phone to open up some live music stream on YouTube. It was really relaxing, actually, like some lofi hip hop kind of style. He didn’t play it loud, either - just having the volume high enough to fill in the silence.

We spent quite awhile like that, with Jean working on his animation and me watching in relaxed interest. We both got through our drinks as time went on, and then another set of drinks after Jean insisted on getting some more.

I seemed to be stuck in some sort of daze, only being brought back to the real world when Jean started waving his hand in front of my face. His lips curled up into a small grin when I shifted my gaze over to him, and it dawned on me that he must’ve been trying to get my attention for some time.

“Nice to see you back in this world, Jaeger,” he grinned, standing up as he spoke, and I realised that the music was no longer playing. “Come on. I want something to eat.”

Wordlessly, I followed him back upstairs and into the kitchen, only just noticing how hungry I’d gotten. It didn’t really feel like that much time had passed since I’d gotten back to Jean’s but, considering it was now dark outside, I guess it must have.

Jean quietly searched through his kitchen cupboards, occasionally speaking up to ask for my preference on certain foods. We eventually settled on some microwave mac n’ cheese, which Jean so graciously prepared whilst I set up something to watch on his TV in the attic.

We ended up watching some old comedy show, though I don’t think either of us were really paying attention to it. Once we had finished with the food, Jean took both of our plates to put them back downstairs, with me calling out for him to grab me a drink.

He returned only a few minutes later, his lips curled up into a grin as he entered the room. Looking at what he had with him, it wasn’t difficult to see why he seemed so upbeat.

“You know, that’s not exactly what I had in mind when I asked for a drink,” I said, gesturing to the bottle of vodka in his hand. He just shrugged, not saying anything as he set it down on the coffee table, along with a couple of shot glasses. “Do you always drink on weekdays?”

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, handing over a now-filled glass and sitting down beside me. “You can ask me whatever you want, and I can ask /you/ whatever I// want, but you gotta drink before you can ask anything.”

“Are you seriously-“ He cut me off with a gesture of his hand, nodding down to my drink as he did. I just rolled my eyes before giving in, swinging back the shot with a strong expression of distaste.

“You were saying?”

“Shut up,” I muttered, somehow being irritated by just how pleased Jean seemed to be from the whole situation. Idiot. “Why the fuck didn’t you bring anything for a chaser?”

Jean just laughed. “‘Cause I’m not a pussy,” he answered, keeping that stupid grin on his face as he took his drink. “Why the fuck do you drink like it’s your first time?”

“Because I’m /normal/ and can’t just down this shit like it’s water,” I said, topping off my glass and turning fully to face him, my legs crossed on top of the couch. There were so many things that I wanted to ask him - way too many for me to get through when I’m having to drink before each one. After a moment of thought, I took my shot, this time doing my best to refrain from pulling any faces, and asked my question.

“Do you actually like living here?”

He quirked a brow. “Uh, yeah, I guess. Why wouldn’t I?”

I shrugged. “It just… seems like a lot of space for only you.”

“Well, that’s what drinks are for - to cure the loneliness,” he said, his tone half-joking, tipping back his shot after speaking. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. “What’s your living arrangements like, anyway?”

“I live alone.”

“Why?”

I snorted. “I’m gonna have to drink a lot more than just two shots and a couple beers to be answering that question,” I said, reaching over to fill up my glass again. “Besides, it’s not your turn.”

“Good thing you’re probably a lightweight, then.”

“Oh, shut up,” I murmured, tipping back my drink before standing up. “I wanna move or something. Let’s go out.”

“Uh, Sure.” Jean started following me out of the room, grabbing the bottle as he went. “It’s gonna be cold out, though. D’you wanna borrow something to wear?”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured, already out through his bedroom. I had to wait a little for Jean by the front door, bouncing on my heels with my hands in my pockets.

When Jean finally returned, he’d thrown a grey sweater over his shirt, as well as an olive green coat. I hated to say it, but he actually looked pretty damn good.

“Where are we heading, anyway?”

“I was just thinking walking around the area - maybe head down to the beach or something.”

“Sounds good to me,” he nodded, locking the front door as we left the house.

It was dark by now - the only light in the area coming from the streetlights along the road. Thankfully, though, it had stopped raining, and I doubted that we’d get another wave of thunder and lightning whilst we were out.

We didn’t really talk all that much for the first fifteen minutes or so. We simply walked in the darkness, occasionally trading the vodka bottle between each other. By the time we had made our way down to the beach, the drink had finally started taking effect, completely impairing my ability to walk in a straight line.

We ran down onto the sand, away from the cars on the road and the people on the pier. With my mind starting to cloud over, I clumsily took off my socks and shoes, ignoring the obvious stares from Jean as I did so.

“I wanted to feel the sand,” I murmured, staring down at my feet. Jean laughed beside me but started taking off his shoes as well, dropping his coat along with them.

“Hey,” he started, nudging my side with his elbow, “bet ya can’t beat me to the ocean.”

“You wish, Kirstein,” I said, offering a lopsided grin before making a run towards the water. Jean laughed behind me as I struggled to stay on my feet, almost tripping headfirst when I suddenly stopped by the ocean.

Time seemed to speed up, then, with me and Jean just carelessly messing around in the knee-deep water. Before long, we were both laying back on the sand, our arms thrown above our heads as we laughed about whatever the hell came to mind. The moment was so cloudy but so calming, too, and the few stars floating above us added to the safe feeling I had in my chest.

The two of us soon calmed down, letting silence slip in between us as our vision steadied. Neither of us spoke for a long while, too content in the moment to end it. Jean was the first to speak up, his voice cutting calmly through the cold air.

“You never did answer my question,” he said, and it must’ve taken me a few minutes to even remember what he was talking about, but he didn’t say anything else to push an answer out of me.

“I live alone,” I eventually said, continuing to stare up at the sky even as Jean turned to face me. I didn’t have the guts to look at him, but the alcohol at least gave me the ability to say what I knew sober me wouldn’t even try to. “I have been since the start of sixth form. I was living with my parents but…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to finish.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, reaching over and carefully slipping his hand into mine, laying them on the sand. “I heard what happened to your mum.”

Running my thumb over his, I stared down at our hands, unsure what to say. Everyone knew about my mum - it was a small town, after all, and she was all over the news for what happened. Still, it wasn’t something I ever spoke about, and I knew that if I started then I wouldn’t be able to hold anything back.

Jean was staring down at our hands as well, now, and after a few moments of silence he spoke up again, his voice barely even audible. “My mum tried to kill herself, too.”

I looked up at him, catching the emptiness in his eyes. I’d never seen him look so drained before, and it was painfully clear that it was a look that I never wanted to see on him again.

“Is that why she’s…?”

“Yeah. The doctors say she’s coping well enough to come home now, though, but my dad keeps telling her that it’s not a good idea.”

Slowly, I sat up, with Jean following soon after. “That’s shitty,” I said, unsure of how else to respond. I felt bad for ever thinking that Jean had it easy. I felt bad knowing I probably wouldn’t even remember this conversation.

Jean didn’t say anything in response, instead just staying silent as he leaned closer, his arms wrapped around his knees as he rested his head on my shoulder. With my mind still in a haze, I slipped my arm over his shoulders, finding comfort in the slight warmth that he gave off. I hadn’t realised just how cold I’d become until then, and I rested my head on Jean’s at the realisation.

“I’m sorry for coming into the hospital today,” I said quietly.

“I know.”

“I really didn’t mean to intrude…”

“It's okay," he said softly. "We're okay."


	7. Hangover

My body ached as I slowly woke from sleep, my eyes struggling to open. Sunlight glared down at me through the window, doing nothing to ease the fogginess in my mind.

Dragging my fingers through my hair, I shifted to lie on my back, freezing when I noticed Jean’s arm hanging over my body. As I shuffled in place, he only moved closer, still completely out of it. Memories of the night before flashed through my mind as I stared down at him, my heart dropping to my stomach when I recalled what he had told me. Most of the details were a total blur, but I definitely hadn’t forgotten that - what he said about his mother…

Fuck. I couldn’t stand to think of it. The topic was still too raw for me, and thinking about Jean’s feelings on top of that only made things worse. Not to mention how I’d told him that he had nothing to worry about in his life only a week ago. I’m surprised he ever even spoke to me again.

Jean wasn’t actually a bad person. He could be an ass, sure, but he wasn’t a bad person. Really, if I had just seen him out on the street without knowing him at all, I probably would have even been attracted to him. It was almost unfair how good he looked; even now, with his hair disheveled and dark circles under his eyes, he still looked amazing.

Jean jutted awake as loud music started blasting from his bedside table. I shifted away from him, watching as he tiredly fumbled around for the device before switching off what I assumed to be his alarm-

“Fuck,” I groaned, slowly sitting up and dragging my fingers through my hair. “I forgot we have school. Christ, I’ve got Ackerman first lesson too.”

“Oh, you’ve already missed that.”

I turned back to look at him, my eyes slightly widened. “What do you mean?”

“It’s, like, ten-thirty already.”

“Why the hell does your alarm only go off at-“ I cut myself off, looking away again as I rubbed my suddenly-aching head. “This sucks.”

There was a shift in weight on the bed, and when I looked up a few moments later I saw that Jean had left the room. Slumping back against the headboard, I stared up at the ceiling, trying not to stress too much for missing school. It was mostly just maths that I didn’t want to have missed - partly because of the information, but mostly because Ackerman was sure to use it against me in the future.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard footsteps, with Jean entering the room along with them. “Here,” he said, his voice surprisingly soothing, as he handed over a glass of water and some pills.

I mumbled a quiet thank you, staring down at the drink for a moment before tentatively drinking some and swallowing a pill along with it. Jean walked over to his wardrobe, searching through his clothes and glancing back at me.

“Do you wanna borrow anything to wear? Your clothes kind of stink of alcohol and sweat.”

“Charming,” I grumbled, though it wasn’t something I could really argue with. “Just chuck me whatever, I guess.”

Jean nodded, throwing back a pair of black jeans and a grey sweater a moment later. Mumbling a small thank you, I shifted over to sit on the edge of the bed, lazily pulling off my shirt and jeans. I sneaked a glance back at the other, looking over his bare back before quickly glancing away as Jean turned back around, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

He walked back over a few moments later, giving my shoulder a light nudge. “You think you’re up for some breakfast?”

I shrugged but stood up anyway. “I guess so.”

As it turned out, I definitely was not up for breakfast. The moment the smell of toast hit me, my hand was over my mouth, and I did my best to keep down whatever I had consumed the day before. Jean just chuckled to himself, making a comment about how I couldn’t handle my drink.

Coffee ended up being the only thing I thought I could keep down, so Jean made me a cup to drink whilst he ate his breakfast. We sat down at his dining room table - which was ridiculously large given that barely even two people lived here. We didn’t talk much at first, which I was highly grateful for. Keeping up with my own thoughts was difficult enough; I wasn’t near awake enough to have a full conversation.

Jean went back to the kitchen at some point, leaving me alone with my coffee and my thoughts. I still couldn’t help but wonder how often he actually drank, and how often it was when he’s alone. It wasn’t uncommon for people our age to drink - hell, most of the students in our year could actually do so legally - but it wasn’t something that anyone does by themselves. Then again, the rest of the year isn’t Jean, and I of all people knew how difficult it was to deal with what he’s dealing with…

“Eren.”

I looked up from my coffee, finding Jean standing to the side of me with his coat on and his keys in hand. “I’ve gotta go shopping. You coming with?”

“Sure,” I nodded, standing up and going over to find my shoes by his front door.

“Do you want to borrow a coat or something?”

I rolled my eyes. “Jean, I think I can handle a little cold.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you thought last night and I ended up having to give you my coat on the walk back here,” he said, and I raised my brows slightly. The memory of that happening was just barely there in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for taking Jean’s coat away.

He just sighed, walking off to a small cupboard before returning a few moments later with a scarf in hand. “Here, at least wear this,” he said, looping the warm fabric around my neck before I had time to protest.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, too tired to act like I didn’t need it. He gave a small nod, before going over to open the door, waiting for me to follow him out. I couldn’t help but glance in the mirror as I did, noticing just how messed up I looked, and how bad it was in contrast to the nice clothes I had borrowed from Jean.

I was a little surprised when we walked all the way down the driveway. “Not taking the car?” For some reason, I’d expected him to be the type of person to just drive everywhere.

He shrugged. “It’s only like a twenty-minute walk from here.”

“Fair enough,” I said, nodding a little along with my words. We were quiet for another few minutes before I spoke again. “So… You’re always the one doing all the housework and stuff?”

“Well, yeah, there’s not really anyone else to do it,” he said simply. “You’re the same, though, aren’t you?”

I looked up in thought. “I mean, yeah, but… Mikasa helps a lot too. It’s usually only because I get in states where I just won’t end up cleaning, and she just gets too annoyed coming over to see my place be such a mess but… She still helps.”

“She sounds nice.”

“She is,” I nodded. “Don’t any of your friends ever help out or anything, then?”

“Eren, most of my friends haven’t even been to my house - and the ones that have were only there for a few minutes if I needed to get something. I mean, I don’t even really hang out with people outside of school, usually.”

“Oh,” I said slowly, furrowing my brows slightly as I stared down at my feet in thought. “Can I ask, then - why were you so open to hanging out with me? I mean, you could have just kicked me out as soon as I was done tutoring you each time.”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, before sighing softly a few moments later and speaking once more. “No, that’s a lie. To be honest, it was because I knew about your mum and I just- Well, I just thought that you’d get it, y’know?”

I looked up to meet his gaze, my chest tightening a little at the mention of my mother. I gave a slow nod, a little surprised by what he had said - not because of what he felt, just because he had actually said it. “Yeah, I get what you mean,” I said, feeling a little weird after the words left my mouth.

I never would’ve guessed that out of anyone, Jean Kirstein would be the person that I could relate to most.


	8. Surprise Visit

Shopping with Jean was actually kind of nice. I mean, okay, there were a few times that we ended up bickering about things, but overall it was enjoyable. It was nice to spend time with someone other than Mika or Armin.

I kept my gaze set on Jean as we left the store together, watching his expression. I never really seemed to know just what he was thinking. I wondered if he remembered all the details of our conversation last night, or if he regretted saying any of it. He was usually so reluctant to opening up that I wouldn't be surprised if he did regret it.

“You okay?” He asked, looking back at me with his head tilted to the side slightly.

I gave a quick nod, looking away for a moment as I dragged myself from my thoughts. I stayed quiet for a moment before slowly asking, “do you think I could stay over at yours again tonight?”

He raised his brows at me. “Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking off in the distance for a moment before returning my gaze to Jean. “Do you mind if we go to mine before heading back to yours? I just need to grab some schoolwork.”

“Yeah, that’s cool. Is it far?”

I shrugged. “Not really. Just up Rose Hill,” I directed, starting to make my way in the right direction. Jean just quietly nodded, following on beside me with a grocery bag in each hand. I offered to carry one for him, but he just shook me off.

It didn’t take too long to reach my apartment building. Jean and I mostly just talked about school on the way there, avoiding any real talk just like we usually did. Something told me that emotional topics were going to be a rarity with sober Jean.

“Do you really walk to school every day?”

“Usually, yeah” I answered, glancing up the rest of the hill before walking up the stairs to the second floor of the building. Armin sometimes gave me a lift in, but I usually tried to just make my own way there.

“I could just give you a lift in if you want. Must be killer walking up there when it’s raining.”

“Really?” I asked, looking back at him and smiling a little. “Yeah, that’d be cool. Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said, following me along to my apartment. He watched as I pulled my key off from around my neck, and reached over to unlock the front door.

I furrowed my brows slightly when I found the door to already be unlocked, my hand freezing on the handle. It was unlikely that someone would have broken in - that just wasn’t really something that happened in our town. Still…

With my heart beating loudly in my chest, I carefully opened the door and stepped inside. For a moment, everything looked as it usually did. The half living room, half kitchen was just as I had left it, with unorganised mess splayed across the tables. I turned back around to look back at Jean, jumping when I saw someone walking out from where my bedroom was.

I swallowed thickly when I saw who it was. Part of me was relieved that I recognised them but, at the same time, it only made me feel more anxious.

“Dad?”

He offered a nervous smile - well, as much as a smile as he seemed to be able to give - and made his way over to me. The action only made me feel more nauseous, my arm snaking around my waist from nerves. I hadn’t seen him in person in well over a year and, even though we weren’t on bad terms or anything, his unannounced presence still caused an odd feeling to run through me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, watching as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes. I’m fine,” he assured, though I wasn’t sure how much I believed him. “I just thought it was finally time that I came up to check on you - and it’s a good thing I did.”

“What are you talking about?”

His expression turned serious - something mixed between concern and disappointment - the way you'd look at someone who overworked themselves. “Eren, you should have told me if you needed more money. You said that I’d only need to pay for your rent and utilities and that your EMA would cover everything else.”

“It does,” I said quickly. It wasn’t strictly true, but it wasn’t too much of a lie, either. I really didn’t want to have to admit to my dad that I needed money. “I’m fine - really.”

He shook his head. “You’re not. The fridge is practically empty, for God’s sake. Did you really not want to talk to me this much?”

I swallowed thickly, wondering if it was obvious just how uncomfortable I felt. I really didn't want him feeling like I hated him or anything of the sorts.“N-no. That’s not it. I just don’t need the money, okay?”

“Eren, you-“

“Hey, sorry to interrupt—“ I glanced back, watching as Jean made his way over to my side as he spoke. I had honestly forgotten he was there for a few moments. “—You really don’t have to worry about him. We actually just came back from the shops,” he said, gesturing to the plastic bags in his hands.

Even though the pride in me flinched from Jean’s help, I had never been more thankful for someone.

“See, I’m fine,” I repeated, my gaze shifting back to my father. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

His gaze lingered on Jean for a few moments before returning to me, and I could tell that he had thousands of questions running through his mind. Eventually, he just sighed, standing up straight again.

“Well, I guess I’d best leave you to put everything away, then,” he said, hesitating slightly for a moment before adding. “I’ve made plans to have dinner at that new restaurant on Queen’s Street. If you want to come so we can catch up, I’d much appreciate it. I’ll be there at seven,” he said, giving a curt nod before making his way out of the apartment.

I waited until the door closed shut before letting out a heavy sigh, staring down at the floor as I dragged my fingers through my hair. I could feel Jean’s eyes on me as I just stared downwards, still trying to just process what had just happened. How long had my dad even been waiting here for? I guess it was probably a good thing I came back up here to get my work...

I finally looked up again when I heard Jean moving about in the corner, my brows knitting together when I saw him emptying out his bags to put things in the cupboards. Agitation was clear in my voice when I spoke up.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting the shopping away,” he said, as though it was the most normal thing for us.

“Well, stop it. I don’t need your help-“

“Shut up, Eren,” he sighed, keeping his eyes set on what he was doing as he said it. It stunned me into silence for a moment, my body frozen. When I was finally about to speak up, he beat me to it.

“Just let me do this for you.”

I opened my mouth to argue but decided to just stay quiet. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with him, and at least some part of me knew there was nothing wrong with accepting his help. So, instead, I just went over to sit silently on my couch, leaving Jean to finish what he was doing.

It wasn’t long until he was sitting down beside me, and even with my gaze set on my lap I could feel his eyes on me. He stayed quiet for a few moments before nudging me lightly and speaking up.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay-“

“I just don’t get it,” I quickly interrupted, looking back up at him. “I haven’t spoken to him in months - hell, I haven’t actually seen him in person in over a year. Why now?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” he said calmly.

I shook my head, jumping up from my seat to start pacing in front of him. I didn’t feel like I could keep my body still.

“He just seemed so together. I haven’t seen him like that since - well, since before my mum-" I sighed, leaning back against the wall to look at Jean. “It really fucked him up, you know? We moved apartments because he couldn’t stand being there anymore and it was cheaper anyway but he just wasn’t getting any better and-“ I cut myself off with a whine, dragging my fingers through my hair and staring down at the floor. I knew I was rambling but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

“He moved away when I started sixth form because he thought it would be best for the both of us and it was but just- /fuck/. And now he’s actually been here and has seen what a mess it is and-..."

I looked up a little when I felt Jean’s arms wrap around me, taking a moment before sinking into the affection. I went silent for awhile, then, before swallowing thickly and quietly speaking.

“Thank you for cutting in earlier,” I said, my hold on him tightening. Jean's hold managed to make me feel so safe. “I just really want him to think that I’m okay.”

“I know,” he said softly, “and he will.I promise it will be okay.”


	9. First Times

Jean and I ended up walking back up to his place, just like how we’d originally intended to. We mostly just played video games all afternoon, which came as a relief as it worked as a brilliant distraction. The thought of dinner with my dad became increasingly difficult to ignore as time went on, though, leading to a large amount of back and forth on whether or not I wanted to go.

Jean somehow managed to calm me down each time, convincing me that the dinner would work out. He let me use his shower, even going as far as to let me borrow some more of his clothes to get me to look somewhat presentable. The restaurant that we were going to wasn’t really anything too fancy, but it was still a shirt and tie kind of place.

“Are you sure I look okay?” I asked from the passenger seat of his car, my gaze set downward as I fiddled with one of the shirt buttons. We’d spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get me ready at his place - ending up settling with a white shirt, a black blazer and skinny jeans.

“Eren, you look fine,” he assured. He was driving me down to where I was supposed to meet my dad - well, almost where I was supposed to meet my dad. I was going to walk the last street down to see him.

We pulled up by the pavement, my heart practically beating out of my chest at the thought of the dinner being so close. I didn’t even know why I was feeling so nervous about it - I guess I was just feeling off after not seeing him for so long.

I looked up when I felt Jean’s hand on my shoulder, the action managing to calm my nerves a little.

“It’ll be alright,” he said, before reaching into his pocket and holding out a phone. “It’s my old one. Just let me know when you need a ride, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I breathed, taking the still new-looking phone from his hand. I sat awkwardly for a moment, before mumbling a quiet thank you and hopping out of the car. I hadn’t even gone ten steps when I heard the phone go off in my hand.

Dude. Your blazer is tucked in at the back. -JK

I felt my cheeks heat up a little but quickly went to fix my clothing. Jean was holding a thumbs up when I turned back to look at him, to which I just flipped him off, making sure to smile a little as I did so.

I finished walking to the street corner, taking a final breather before turning to head down the street that the restaurant was on. In the distance, I could see my dad standing alone just outside of the building. He noticed me almost immediately and, I’m not too sure but, I think I could see him smile a little too.

“Son! I’m glad you could make it. You’re looking pretty sharp, too.”

“Ah, thanks,” I said awkwardly, deciding to leave out that it was all borrowed. Hell, even the dress shoes I was wearing were Jean's. "Should we head inside?"

He gave a short nod, humming low in agreement. “Yeah, come on, then.”

We didn’t really talk much for the first ten minutes or so, instead just sitting in a semi-awkward silence as we looked through the menu. After we ordered, though, the quiet only stuck for a few moments, before my dad finally broke it.

“So, how is school going?”

“It’s… going,” I said slowly, awkwardly playing with the ends of my sleeves in my lap. I was actually relieved when we got interrupted by our waiter again.

“Sorry- Can I get you two any drinks?”

I looked over at my dad, waiting for his answer. Back when my mum died, he started drinking heavily on a regular basis. He never really turned against me during it, but he still wasn’t someone you’d want to be around when he’s like that. I was sure that I’d only ever seen him be emotional in any way whilst drunk.

“Just water will be fine, thanks.”

I raised my brows a little. “Yeah, same here,” I said, smiling a little at the waiter before he left.

“I’m actually five months sober today.”

“Oh, woah,” I breathed, my lips turning up into a faint smile. “That’s really good, dad. Seriously, that’s… just amazing. I’m happy for you.”

He smiled a little as well, then - something that seemed so unnatural on him nowadays. Or, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he really had gotten a lot better since I’d last seen him.

It wasn’t too long then before our starters arrived, and not long after that until we were having our main course. We both went for some dish with rice, except my dad had steak whereas I was having chicken. We were about halfway through our meals when I finally decided to say what was on my mind.

“Dad, you know I love you being here and all,” I started, keeping my eyes set on my food as I spoke, “but why are you here? I mean, why now?”

He gave a half nod, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Well, I told you, I thought it was about time that I actually came to see you and make sure you were doing alright,” he explained, waiting for me to meet his gaze as he sipped at his drink. “I really have been doing a lot better, son. I’ve finally got a steady income again, as well. “

“Oh,” I said slowly. “That’s great.”

“It is,” he agreed, and that was the end of that subject. We talked a little more about what we had been doing since we last saw each other, and I mentioned what plans I had for university. It wasn’t long then before we were paying the bill and heading outside, and for once I felt completely content after being with him.

“Do you need a lift home?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got it sorted.”

“Well, alright then,” he said with a nod. He seemed to hesitate a little, then, his body looking stiff before he moved forward, pulling me into a short hug.

I couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.

“I’ll see you another time — and, Eren, if you ever need help, you don’t need to hesitate to ask. I hope you know that.”

And with that, he was off, waving his hand in response to mine before disappearing around the corner.

For a few moments, I just stood still, looking blankly off into the distance. The whole situation felt so surreal - like something out of a dream.

I didn’t stay that for long, however. The harsh cold flood through me, bringing me back to reality and urging me to text Jean to pick me up.

He didn’t leave me standing out in the cold for long, arriving less than ten minutes after I had messaged him. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw him pull up, hurrying over to sit in the passenger’s seat.

“Have fun?”

“Yeah, actually,” I answered, a small smile forming on my face. I didn’t know just how much I’d missed having my dad around until now.

“Glad to hear it,” Jean smiled, before driving us back to his place.

When we got there, Jean and I went straight up to his bedroom so I could change out of the clothes. I sat down on the edge of his bed, taking off my jacket whilst he searched through the wardrobe.

“Oh, right,” I said, feeling the phone in the blazer pocket and taking it out. “Thanks for letting me borrow this.”

Jean shrugged. “Keep it.”

“Dude, no. This shit is still relatively new, I’m not taking it from you,” I said, putting it down on his bedside table. “Anyway, my dad seems to be doing a lot better now. If I really need to I could just ask him to buy me a new phone for my birthday or something.”

Jean hummed, his attention still set on finding clothes. “That’s dumb. I’m not using it, and it’s not on contract or anything. You may as well take it.”

I looked back down at the phone, tapping my fingers on my knee. He was right, really - I knew that - but it still felt off. Maybe I didn’t want to feel like I was accepting help from him again.

I sighed, then, looking back up in his direction. “Why are you so nice to me?”

He stopped searching through his wardrobe, turning back a little to look at me. “What do you mean?”

“I shouted at you because I thought your life was easy and I disrupted your visit with your mum,” I said, my hands dropping in my lap. “I’d be pretty pissed.”

Jean shifted slightly. “Well, yeah, I mean I was happy about it but…-“ he sighed, shrugging his shoulders and turning to properly face me. “I don’t hold it against you or anything. And..." He trailed off for a little, looking like he was considering his next words. "I mean, I’m nice to you because I care about you.”

“Yeah. Right…”

“I’m being serious, Eren,” he said, walking over to sit down beside me. He placed his hand on my knee, and it was done in such a gentle manner that I could feel my heart flutter in response. “I really do care about you.”

“You’ve barely even known me two weeks,” I said, my voice sounding breathless.

Jean shrugged again, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as he leaned in closer. “Does that really matter?” He asked, and before I even had the chance to process the words, his lips were on mine.

My mind went blank, my body freezing up for only a few seconds before I relaxed into the affection. My arms found their way around his waist, his lips curling up into a faint smile as I returned the kiss. Slowly, he moved me backwards until I was lying back on his bed, with him hovering above me.

His lips moved along my jaw, trailing kisses down onto my neck. My breathing deepened slightly at the feeling, and then even more as he ran his hand up my side. He smoothly unbuttoned my shirt, his lips not leaving my skin as he did so.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he whispered, moving back only so he could look me over. His fingers trailed down my body, causing shivers to run through me. He leaned down again, pressing short kisses along my abdomen, pausing and looking up at me as he reached the waistband of my jeans.

“You good?” He asked, searching for some sort of confirmation. I nodded right away, trying not to blush from the way he grinned at my obvious eagerness. “Good,” he said, before continuing downwards, tugging down my jeans as he did so.

/Fuck…./

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing Thursday's upload! I'll only be posting on Monday from now on, since I've got to start spending more time on work.


	10. Meanings

My mind felt groggy as I slowly woke up, the world around me eventually coming into focus. I looked down, mindlessly running my thumb over the arm that was wrapped loosely around my waist - my very naked waist…

My eyes widened a little, my hand freezing in its spot as the events of the night before caught up with me.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, the words coming out of my mouth without me even meaning them to. I turned a little to glance back at Jean, a little relieved to find him still completely asleep beside me.

Doing my best not to wake him, I carefully moved out of his hold and sat up a little, wincing a little at the slight pain in my lower back. I looked down at him for awhile, my mind filled only with memories from the night before. The whole event seemed like it had come out of nowhere, and I couldn’t even start to think about what was running through Jean’s head when he made that first move.

I gave a short sigh, looking off to the side before reaching down to Jean’s nightstand and grabbing his - well, my - phone. My eyes widened when I saw the time, a wave of panic running through me as I hopped off the bed and started searching around for some clothes.

I ended up just shoving on the clothes I had worn to dinner last night - minus the tie and blazer. Quickly grabbing my bag, I made my way out of Jean’s house, typing out Armin’s number on my phone as I went.

Usually, I wouldn’t be too worried about being late or missing hours, but given that I had already missed school the day before and I was less than ten minutes away from being late to yet another one of Mr Ackerman’s lessons, I thought it would be best not to push my luck. So, I gave Armin a quick ring, asking him to come pick me up from Shinganshina Estate.

He had a lot of questions for me when he arrived, but I just told him that I’d tell him everything after our lesson with Ackerman. He reluctantly agreed, clearly eager for answers but deciding not to waste time pushing for them.

We arrived pretty much just in time, and I faked a smile when the teacher made a comment about me actually showing up. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great teacher, but, fuck, do I hate him a lot of the time.

As soon as the bell rang and I was out of the door, Armin was right by my side again, pressing me for information. Mikasa joined just as quick, watching the both of us from the other side of me. I just rolled my eyes at their nagging, though, really, I was quite eager to talk to them.

“Don’t either of you have lessons to go to?”

Armin shrugged. “Bio was canceled.”

“And this is a lot more interesting than revision,” Mikasa chimed in, and I just had to sigh in defeat.

“Okay, okay,” I said, heading outside and sitting down on one of the benches. “I stayed over at Jean’s the other night…”

I spent awhile explaining the past couple of days, going in order of the events that happened. Their expressions turned sympathetic when I brought up my dad, and I couldn’t help but think about how bad it made me feel compared to how Jean reacted. I always felt like Armin and Mikasa just pitied me whenever anything bad happened, and I hated that.

“…And then we fucked.”

“Oh my God.”

“Gross,” Mikasa mumbled, wrinkling her nose a little.

I rolled my eyes, grinning a little. “Maybe, but it was damn good, though.”

“No thanks, I don’t need to be hearing all the details,” she said, waving me off.

“So… Was it just sex then?” Armin asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess. It just kind of happened but we haven’t exactly had a chance to talk about-“

“Wait, hold on,” he interrupted. “So you didn’t even talk to him before leaving this morning?”

“Well, no. He was still asleep,” I explained, my brows furrowing a little in confusion when they shared a glance. They seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. “What? What did I do wrong now?”

“It might just leave the wrong impression,” Armin said slowly.

“Yeah. It kinda just looks like you regretted it and wanted to get the hell out of there.”

“I was just late for class, though! I didn’t- Ugh,” I groaned, slumping forward, resting my elbow on the table and my head on my hand. “What should I do?”

“Eren, I really don’t think we’re the most useful for advice in this matter,” Armin said, and Mikasa just nodded in agreement.

“This is stupid,” I muttered. “It doesn’t even make any sense! He was just acting like usual and then he just started making out with me out of nowhere.”

“Definitely sounds like he just wanted sex, then,” Mikasa said, before frowning a little when I gave her a sad look. “What? You actually want it to be more?”

“No! Well, I mean…” I groaned again. “I don’t know,” I murmured. I hadn’t really given it enough thought to care either way until now. I was totally cool with how things were between me and Jean before but now… “I just know that I wouldn’t want it to just be like… that.”

They each gave a short nod, and then Armin spoke up. “You should go tell him.”

“Yeah, right, ‘cause that would go well,” I huffed.

Armin shook his head a little. “No, Eren, really, you should go tell him,” he said, looking away and nodding his head in the same direction.

I raised my brows slightly in confusion, before looking over to where he was directing. My body shrank in on itself when I saw Jean walking over to the sixth form in the opposite direction. My head told me to catch up to him so we could talk, but my body refused to move from its position.

He looked… normal. His expression was completely neutral, just like it usually would be. He was carrying his art folder in one hand and wearing his clothes like he would any other day. Maybe that was a good thing, because it made Armin’s worry that he’d think I regretted last night seem less likely. That said, it also could just mean that he didn’t care, which was even worse than if he’d been mad at me.

“I’ll just talk to him at break,” I said, before slowly changing the subject and spending the rest of the hour just talking about whatever.

When break rolled around, I made my way over to the sixth form center, preparing myself to talk to Jean.

And then I wimped out of it.

I told myself I’d do it at lunch instead, but I just wimped out then, too. The same happened at the end of last lesson, and in the afternoon, and in the evening. Even at 9pm, I was laying in bed on my phone, searching him up on Facebook and hovering over his name.

The only thing that stopped me from doing anything was the sound of someone knocking at my door, my brows raising a little in response. I got up to answer it, not bothering to change out of my pyjama shirt and boxers as I just assumed it would be Mikasa. She was really the only one that I could imagine coming over like this.

I opened the door, biting down on my lip as I saw who it was.

“Jean…?”

He smirked. “The one and only,” he said, and I sighed a little when his words came out slurred.

“You’re drunk.”

“Don’t say it like that. Look, I even brought extra for you,” he said, holding up a bottle of Malibu and making his way past me and into the apartment.

“I’m not going to drink with you,” I said, closing the door and turning to look at him.

“Why not?”

“Jean, we have /school/ tomorrow. I don’t need another reason for me to want to stay home.”

“You’re lame,” he said, taking a step closer to me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“I’m not lame-.”

“Lame~” he said, dragging the word out with a grin on his face.

I went to defend myself again but was interrupted by Jean’s lips pressing against my own. My heart skipped a beat, and I only let myself give into the kiss for a moment before making myself pull away. When I opened my eyes, I was met with Jean’s saddened expression, and my heart actually ached a little when I saw the disappointment in his eyes.

“Jean-“

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, moving away to lean back against the wall opposite me. “I just wanted you to like me.”

I shifted my weight a little, his words running through my mind over and over but still making no clear sense. Was last night more than just sex to him? He looked genuinely hurt, and I felt the need to apologise for leaving him without saying a word. The worry that he wouldn’t remember my apology stuck with me, though, so I ended up just sighing.

“You should go get some rest,” I said softly, moving forwards to lower the bottle that he was midway through raising to his lips. He looked sadly down at me for a moment, before loosening his grip on the drink so I could take it off of him. Gently, I took his other hand in mine, walking him through to my bedroom and placing the bottle on a shelf on the way.

I sat him down on the bed, watching as he tiredly kicked off his shoes. I helped him slip under the covers, moving over to lie down beside him. He seemed to be hesitating a little as he moved slightly closer to me, and I wrapped an arm around him in hopes of comforting him a little. He immediately relaxed into the hold, moving over to rest his head against my chest and drape his arm across my stomach.

Silently, I moved my free hand to run my fingers through his hair. Jean seemed to lean into the touch a little, and I couldn’t help but smile a little as he did. After a slight moment's hesitation, I leaned down, placing a gentle kiss on his head.

“Goodnight, Jean.”


	11. Friends

I got up some time before Jean, making sure to be quiet as I shifted away from him and made my way into the kitchen. I decided to just keep any thoughts about anything out of my head, giving myself time to wake up as I turned the kettle on to make some coffee. Though, it didn’t really help that the milk I was using for my drink was bought by the person I was trying to not think about. Whatever.

It wasn’t long before Jean was making his way over to join me, his hand dragging through his messy hair. My alarm must have woken him up.

“Mornin’.”

“Morning,” I replied, offering a faint smile as he made himself a glass of water. “Sorry I don’t have any Aspirin or anything.”

He grunted, leaning back against the counter to face me. “I guess I’ll live,” he murmured, slowly sipping at his drink. After a moment of silence, he sighed, putting the drink down and looking up at me. “Listen, I don’t really remember any of last night too well so… I just hope I didn’t do or say anything stupid.”

I shrugged. “You didn’t. Or, at least, I don’t think you did,” I said, having some of my own drink before putting it down as well. “Hey, so, the other night…-”

“It was a mistake,” he finished. “It’s okay. I get it.”

I raised my brow a little, hoping that he was just trying to finish off my own words and not actually voicing his own feelings. “I don’t think it was a mistake.”

“You don’t?” He asked, his tone sounding a little less confident than usual. He waited a moment before adding, “what do you think it was, then?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly, pausing for a moment, “but I don’t regret it.”

Jean nodded. “Good. Me neither,” he said, and for a moment I thought he was going to continue speaking, but he just turned to walk back to my room. Not too long later, he returned, now with his shoes and coat on.

“Are you leaving?” I asked, and I hoped I didn’t sound as disappointed as I was.

He shrugged. “I have a lesson in a couple hours and I need to walk back to mine to get all my shit.”

“I could come with you,” I offered, “if you want.”

He smiled a little at that. “Alright. Hurry up and get dressed, though.”

I nodded, leaving to get ready as fast as I could. I was in my uniform in no time, wordlessly doing up my tie as I walked back over to Jean. I threw on my jacket and my backpack, locking up the door as we left.

Even with how tired I felt, the walk to Jean’s managed to pass reasonably quickly. We spent the majority of it in silence, finding some peace in the early morning quiet around us. It was kind of nice living in such a small area.

“I can’t believe I managed to walk all the way to yours,” he mumbled, opening up his front door and heading inside. I didn’t say anything in response, instead just following him upstairs to his bedroom. I couldn’t help but think of the other night as I stared down at his bed.

“I’m gonna go shower,” he said, dumping his coat on the floor before turning to leave. “I won’t be long.”

Needing a distraction, I grabbed my psychology textbook from my bag, deciding to revise as I waited for Jean to come back. I wondered if he had the same kind of thoughts running through his mind as I did.

When he returned, I did my best to just keep my gaze set down on what I was reading. Even from just the corner of my eye, I could see that he was only wearing a towel, and I didn't feel like embarrassing myself by getting caught eyeing him up. Really, I couldn’t tell if he was really confident with his body or if he just didn’t care.

“Nerd. Do you always work this early?”

“I have a test,” I mumbled, briefly glancing up at him from where I sat on his bed. It wasn’t fair that someone could look so good after showering; I always managed to look like a drowned puppy.

“Still a nerd.”

“Whatever,” I huffed, closing the book and stuffing it in my bag. I threw it over my shoulder, standing up to leave the room. “I’m gonna grab something to eat. Don’t take too long-.”

“Wait, Eren.”

I turned back to look at him, trying to keep my gaze set on his. He was still only wearing that damn towel. “What?”

He grinned. “Never mind.”

I raised my brows slightly in confusion before simply rolling my eyes, turning on my heel to head downstairs. Sometimes I really didn’t understand Jean.

Once he was dressed and I had eaten, he drove us both to school. I was about to get out of the car when he stopped me, his hands still set on the steering wheel and his fingers tapping in a seemingly anxious manner.

“Is it cool if I hang out with you at lunch today?”

I tilted my head at that. “Yeah, sure,” I said slowly, a little surprised by the question. “I usually just spend it in the sixth form center with Mika and Armin, if you’re okay with hanging with them, too.”

“‘Course,” he nodded, and that was the end of that.

Mikasa was a little reluctant when I told her, but I knew she wouldn’t say no. Armin actually seemed a little excited, which was also a little worrying considering that he knew about the other night. 

Lunch rolled around soon enough and, as usual, we sat in the corner by the windows. Jean joined us a little after, not saying anything as he sat down beside me. There was a short silence, with none of us really knowing what to say, before Jean spoke up.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

The question was clearly directed at me since Armin and Mika were sitting with their usual lunches. They both shifted their gaze between me and Jean, probably wondering how I would respond.

“I forgot to pack a lunch before we left.”

“Wait,” Armin cut in, “you two were together again?”

“Eren let me stay the night at his place-“

“Really? Did you get up to much?” Mikasa asked, leaning forward a little to speak to Jean.

“Not really-“

“So you were just hanging out then? Like friends?” She stressed the word ‘friends’ a little, and I had to interrupt because Jean just looked so damn weirded out.

“Jesus, Mika, stop interrogating him, would ya?”

“What? I’m just making conversation.”

“Anyway,” Jean mumbled, shifting a little in his seat. “I was gonna go to Subway or something if you wanna come with - Eren?” He asked, turning to look at me, and it was so obvious that he was saying it as a way to escape the situation. Before I could even say anything, though, Mikasa was cutting in.

“I'll come with you.”

“Mika, maybe it's best if-“

“Don't fuss, Eren. Armin needs to finish his food so you can just stay here with him.”

“But-“

“Come on, Jean,” she said, already starting to walk away.

Jean gave me a look before leaving as well.

“How much do you want to bet that Jean won't make it back alive?”

I couldn't even laugh at Armin’s joke, instead just groaning in annoyance. “It's like she's /trying/ to creep him out.”

“I'm sure she has good intentions,” Armin said softly, and I couldn't help but relax a little when I saw the warm smile on his face.

“I feel like I've just brought my boyfriend home to my parents.”

“So you two talked about it, then?” He asked, going back to eating his sandwich.(?)

“Kind of. I just let him know that I didn't regret it, but other than that we haven't really said much more about the whole thing,” I explained, thinking for a moment before adding, “he did say this one weird thing, though.”

“And what's that?”

“He said that he just wanted me to like him. Not that he remembers - he was piss-drunk at the time.”

“How romantic.”

I had to laugh a little at that. “Shut up.”

He smiled. “I'm sure it will be fine.”

I just hummed, before returning to a different conversation topic. It wasn't long before I was lost in whatever subject matter we were discussing, with any thought of Jean and Mikasa long gone. By the time the two returned, Armin and I were in the middle of a card game, and we only noticed them when they were sitting back down with us.

“Looks like you’re getting your ass kicked, Eren,” Jean said, leaning over to look at my cards. I just glared at him in response, before raising my brows a little when I saw he’d gotten two sandwiches. “They were having a deal so I got you one too,” he said with a shrug.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, a little quietly, deciding to refrain from giving Mikasa a look that said ‘I know you told him to say that’. I grinned a little, then, perking up and looking back towards Armin. “I’ll eat it after I win this game.”

“Guess you’ll be going hungry, then,” Armin teased, and Jean laughed along with him. It felt kind of weird hearing them all get along. Well, maybe not them all. I still wasn’t sure what Mikasa was thinking about the whole situation.

The teasing only continued then because, as much as I hated to say it, Armin completely destroyed me. I just huffed and tried to ignore them, reaching over to eat the sandwich that Jean had bought me, anyway. Mika must have told him what my favourite was, too, because that’s what he’d got.

It wasn’t too long before lunch was over, and Jean had to leave us for his art lesson. He waved the other two goodbye, telling me that he’d see me after school, before heading out of the sixth form center.

As soon as he was gone, Armin and I directed our attention to Mikasa, looking at her expectedly. She flicked her gaze between us for a few moments, before giving a shrug and finally speaking.

“I guess he’s alright.”


	12. Going Out

“Is this last one right?”

I glanced up at Jean before reading over his work on his paper, shifting a little closer to him at our usual positioning at his desk. We had been sitting there for probably over two hours now, as we’d basically missed the last tutoring session. Maybe I was wrong, but it kind of seemed like Jean was actually getting into it a little now.

“Perfect. You’re really getting the hang of this,” I said with a slight smile, shifting the paper back over to him.

“Well… I guess you’re not /that/ bad of a teacher,” he offered, returning the smile with one of his own and giving me a gentle nudge.

“Wow, was that a compliment?” I asked, my tone overly dramatic before I let out a chuckle. “What, did Mika drug you or something when you went out?”

He laughed a little as well. “Shut up. I’m nice to you sometimes.”

“Only when you’re drunk.”

“Ah, whatever,” he shrugged, though he was still smiling. “Anyway, does this mean we’re done for the day? ‘Cause I could really go for some food right now.”

“I’ll say yes if you let me have some of whatever you’re having.”

He chuckled and started putting his work away. “Yeah, sure. I was gonna ask you to come along, anyway.”

I raised my brow a little. “Come along? Does this mean you’re actually going out to eat for once?” Jean only ever seemed to leave his house for school or if he was going somewhere with me. It was kind of nice hearing him actually /want/ to go out for a change.

He just rolled his eyes in response before getting up and making his way downstairs, gesturing for me to follow along. We both put on our shoes before going out and hopping into Jean’s car, leaving once he had finished sending a text on his phone.

I just stared out of the window for the majority of the journey, not really paying too much attention as to where we were going. When the car came to a halt and the engine stopped humming, I finally came fully back into reality, my brows furrowing a little as I looked around.

Before I knew it, Jean was opening my door for me, and I slowly got out as I continued glancing around in confusion. We had parked just outside the entrance to a nature trail going through some woodland and, even though it had been awhile since I’d been in the area, I knew there wasn’t anywhere you could go for food in a walking distance.

Wordlessly, Jean started heading down the path with his hands in his pockets, and I quickly moved to catch up with him.

“Where are we going exactly?”

He smirked a little, glancing down at me for the shortest moment before looking away again. “Come on, Eren. Don’t you trust me?”

I snorted. “Oh /God/, this is exactly how a murder scene from any horror film starts out. Hey, promise you’ll make it quick at least? I’d rather not be left to slowly bleed out.”

He laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

We carried on walking for another fifteen minutes or so, with much of it being uphill. Jean just laughed every time I complained about being out of breath, and I couldn't help but wonder how he seemed to be coping so well when all he ever did was sit down all day.

I was about to start questioning Jean again when we finally came to a stop, my eyes widening as I looked over to where Jean was standing.

At the top of the path we’d been climbing was a wooden table, positioned so it was facing the view of the woodland below and the village a little off in the distance. The table itself had been covered in a red, plaid blanket. On top of that sat two plates, two glasses, a large bottle of Pepsi and a box of pizza.

The whole scene looked perfect - like something you’d see in some lame teen romance film. It was almost a little nerve-wracking, as it felt a little out of place from Jean in general. Not to mention that it made me only able to think about what it meant for us.

“Eren?”

I looked back over to Jean, who was standing with his hands in his pockets. Maybe I was wrong, but he looked a little nervous. I walked a little closer, looking down at the table, before speaking.

“You did this?”

“Well, I had a little help,” he admitted.

“Let me guess - Mikasa?” I couldn’t imagine this being Jean’s kind of style, but it was certainly Mika’s.

He gave a small smile. “Yeah, I mean, she said that if I was gonna make a move then she at least wanted me to do it right.”

I turned to face him at that, scanning his expression for a moment. “So… Is this, like, a date?”

“If you want it to be,” he said, and I couldn’t understand how there were any doubts in his mind on what my answer would be.

I gave him a small smile before closing the gap between us, wasting no time in reaching up and kissing him gently. When I pulled away, he just smiled back. “Dork,” he mumbled, reaching down and taking my hand in his to walk me to the bench. He sat me down on the side facing the view, before sitting across from me.

“You know, Mikasa was originally actually trying to get me to do a full-on cliche picnic, but I thought you’d like this more,” he said, opening up the pizza box and grabbing a slice. I couldn’t help but smile a little when I saw it was the same we’d gotten together a few weeks ago.

“That’s not surprising. And, yeah, the pizza definitely seems a lot more you, anyway,” I said, grabbing a slice of my own.

“If it had been completely left to me, we’d probably be playing video games back at mine and you wouldn't even have realised that I wanted it to be a date.”

I laughed a little at that. “Yeah? Well, maybe next time,” I smiled, staying quiet for a moment as I ate, before adding, “this is nice, though.”

He smiled, and it looked so genuine that I couldn’t help but return its warmness. “I’m glad you like it.”

Not too long later, we seemed to have settled into our usual tone of conversation. It was nice, and I was glad that there was no awkward tension in the air. It was just how we usually would be, just with a few more smiles.

It was also so easy to be calm when we were sitting where we were. The trees around us really did look beautiful, even with most of their leaves still fallen off. The sky looked amazing, too, and at some point whilst we were eating, the sun began to set, and I couldn’t help but stare past Jean to look at it. The colours were absolutely mesmerising.

“It’s calming to look at, isn’t it?”

I glanced back over to Jean, who had his head turned to look at the sunset. I must have zoned out a little before he had spoken.

Staying quiet, I got up and moved over to sit beside him, both of us now facing the sunset. I leaned against him a little, giving a content sigh as he slipped his arm around me.

“Thank you for this,” I whispered.

“That’s okay."

“I used to come here with my mum, you know,” I added, “when I was little.”

“She sounds lovely,” he said softly. “We can come here more often, if you want.”

“Yeah. I think I’d like that,” I nodded, wrapping my arm around him to hold onto his hand. “I like being with you.”

“I like being with you, too,” he said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “I don’t usually feel comfortable getting close to people, but I think I’d be okay if it was with you.”

I gave a quiet hum, my lips curling up into a faint grin. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you wanted to get together or something.”

“Shut up,” he chuckled, and I had to laugh a little along with him. We were quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “What do you think, then? It doesn’t really have to be anything serious. It can just be… something. If you want.”

I looked up at him for a moment before shifting forwards and gently pressing my lips to his. When I pulled back, he was smiling sheepishly, his hand squeezing mine. I returned the gesture before happily answering.

“Yeah. That sounds great.”


	13. Together

By Monday, it seemed that most of the students in sixth form knew about me and Jean. That wasn’t really too surprising, though - it was a small town, after all. People usually kept to their own small groups in our year but throughout the day, quite a few students came up to me to ask about it. Well, it was mostly girls, really, which is kind of ironic. The only time girls actually noticed me was when they found out I’m with a guy.

Armin and Mika were psyched when I told them, as well. I was still surprised that Mikasa had actually helped Jean out with the date. I didn’t think she really even liked him but, for once, I was glad I was wrong.

I started spending more and more time with Jean as the days went on. Most nights, I even stayed over with him. We were both clearly tired of living alone all the time, so it was nice to actually have someone to go home to. Jean seemed to feel the same, but he generally needed his alone time a lot more than I did. That wasn’t really a problem, though; he’d just hide out in his art room whilst I worked somewhere else around the house. At least it meant that some of the space was finally getting used.

Jean started spending some more time with me, Armin and Mikasa, as well. It was still a little strange seeing them all get along together, but it was in a good way. When we had started Sixth form, most of the students in our year hand changed or expanded their friendship groups at least to some extent, but that had never been the case for Mikasa, Armin and me. It was good to see them getting along with someone else like this.

“Where are we going again?”

I gave a small hum at Jean’s question, glancing around the street that we were walking down. “It’s this cafe that Armin, Mika and I always go to,” I answered, giving his hand a little squeeze. It felt so calming to be out holding his hand like this. “You’ll love it.”

“And you’re sure it’s cool that I’m coming?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure. It was actually them who wanted to invite you in the first place.”

“Damn, Eren, are you saying you /didn’t/ want to invite me along?” He said, placing his free hand over his heart in an overdramatic manner. “I’m hurt.”

Reaching up to flick his forehead, I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Idiot.”

He gave a slight shake of his head, his lips curled up into a grin. “Wow, now you’re insulting my intelligence, too? How rude.”

“You’re impossible,” I groaned.

“No, I’m Jean,” he said, and when I looked up to glare at him, he had the widest and most shit-eating grin on his face that I’d ever seen. He just laughed at my expression, before leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss on my lips. “Don’t give me that look. You know I’m hilarious.”

“If you tell any more dad jokes I’m gonna scream.”

“Oh, come on, you love them.”

“I hate you.”

“Whatever,” he chuckled, still grinning down at me a little. I didn’t say anything else, instead just tugging him around a corner and opening up the door to Scouts.

As expected, Mikasa and Armin were already sitting and waiting for us in the usual corner. They greeted us with warm smiles, which Jean and I automatically returned as we made our way over to them, sitting down on the chairs opposite.

“Did you get the usuals?” I asked, tugging my own drink towards me.

“Of course,” Mikasa answered. We always got the same: a white hot chocolate for Armin, a strawberry frappe for Mika, and a raspberry smoothie for me. “I was going to get you something, too, but I didn’t know what you’d like,” she continued, directing her gaze to Jean.

“It’s cool,” he shrugged, before grinning a little and wrapping his arm over my shoulders. “Hey, if I grab another straw we can be that cliche couple who share their drink.”

I chuckled. “Only if you promise not to post a billion photos of it on your Instagram.”

He hummed.“I’m going to pretend that didn’t offend me. So - straw or no straw?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I smiled. “They’re over by the counter.”

“Sweet,” he said, before getting up and walking away. I looked over at the others, rolling my eyes when Armin started wriggling his eyebrows. Mikasa gave him a careful shove in response, though couldn't seem to but offer me a quick thumbs up.

When Jean returned, he quickly put the straw in beside mine, before slipping his phone out from his pocket. I raised my brow up at him when he opened up the camera app, and he just shrugged in response.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m doing art A-level; I like taking photos.”

“You’re an idiot,” I corrected light-heartedly, to which he just smiled before slipping his arm back around me. I grabbed the drink as he held his phone up, deciding to just go along with it as he took God-knows how many selfies.

Not long later, he’d managed to somehow convince the others to join in as well, and happily started taking photos of us all. Most of them were just fun and goofy, but some of them genuinely looked really good. You could tell that Jean actually knew what he was doing with a camera - even if it was just the one on a phone.

Eventually, we all settled down, and Jean’s phone returned to his pocket as we all relaxed into conversation. Jean seemed to mostly just listen, only making a few comments every so often. It was weird how he was so confident but so reserved at the same time.

“Oh, right, Jean - isn’t that test of yours next week?”

I glanced up at Armin, inwardly groaning at the question. Jean had been improving, of course, and it did seem that he was taking it all a lot more seriously now but… Well, I was still worried, to say the least.

“Yeah. It’s on Monday,” he answered, giving a short nod along with his words. “I think I should be fine.”

“We’ll probably do more study sessions this week, though, anyway,” I added on, looking over at the two opposite and trying to sound casual. “Just in case.”

Jean raised his brow as he looked down at me, waiting a moment before slowly saying, “well, yeah, but I think I’ll be fine. And I don’t need your study sessions to go over everything that you’ve already taught me.”

“I know,” I responded, not meaning for my voice to be as slow and patronising as it sounded, “but there’s no harm in me being there to help you out.”

“Right, but I’m saying that’s not necessary," he said, turning more to face me. "Sometimes I work better on my own.”

"But if you have the chance to have someone help you, it only makes sense to accept it-"

"Except I don't /need/ the extra help. I'm fine just revising by myself."

“Oh, yeah, that explains why you did so well on all your other attempts of this exam-“

“I told you, I had shit going on in my life,” he growled, his teeth clenched together. “You /know/ that.”

"Yeah, well, I seemed to do just fine," I mumbled.

“Eren,” Mikasa said sternly, her gaze disapproving as I looked up at her. I shifted slightly in my seat, knowing by the uncomfortable thickness in the air that I’d gone too far. I glanced over at Jean, who was staring down at the table, his body tense.

We all stayed quiet, then, none of us sure on what to say. The silence was only broken by the sound of Jean’s phone going off in his pocket, which he carefully pulled out. After reading the screen, he stood up, his expression still the same as it was before.

“I’ve gotta go,” he murmured, barely giving any of us a second glance before making his way out of the building. Reluctantly, I returned my gaze back to the others, unsurprised to see their concerned and disappointed faces. I couldn’t stand them looking at me like that.

With no intention of going after Jean, I stood up, shoving my hands in my pockets and walking off to escape the judgment.


	14. The Test

Jean didn’t show up to school the next. I still hadn’t even spoken to him since he stormed off from the cafe, and I honestly didn’t plan on doing so either. I didn’t say anything /that/ bad, so I figured that he would have to calm down and talk to me eventually.

When he didn’t show up again the next day, however, I started to worry a little. I ended up texting him a few times to see where he was, and if he was alright, but he didn’t answer. By lunch, I was starting to freak out about it, worried that he’d gone and done something stupid. I ended up trying to call him at least eight times before he responded with a text message.

“He says he’s fine,” I murmured, slumping back in my seat as I stared down at the phone screen. “Says he’s just been busy.”

“See. We told you there was no reason to be so worried,” Armin said softly, and Mikasa gave a short nod in agreement.

“Though, it does sound like he might still be pissy with you,” she added.

“I don’t understand how I manage to fuck things up so easily,” I said, my fingers hovering slightly over the screen before replying to his message.

‘Are you sure you’re okay? I can come over if you want me to?’ -EJ

‘I’m fine. I’ll see you some other time, though, okay?’ -JK

‘Okay. Message me if you need me. I can come over ASAP x’ -EJ

[read 12: 58]

“Relax, Eren,” Armin said, resting his hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be alright. Seems like he just wants a little space.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled, locking my phone and shoving it in my bag. I decided to try and take Armin’s advice, though, letting Jean be for the moment and trying not to worry about it too much.

We barely spoke for the rest of the week. Over the weekend, it did seem like he was warming up a little - though, we were just texting, so it was kind of difficult to know for sure.

As much as I was worried about how Jean was, I couldn’t help but stress over the test he was going to have. It was selfish, I know, but /God/ I couldn’t have Ackerman take me off that trip. There was no way that Jean was ready for it, and the fact that I didn’t know if he had been studying for it was killing me, but even I knew it would be pushing it if I were to ask him about it.

That said, I still really couldn’t understand how he was so mad at me still. I mean, I didn’t /know/ that he was mad at me, but it seemed like the only reasonable explanation as to why he was being so weird with me. Still, there was the lingering thought at the back of my mind that something was wrong; I did my best to brush that off, though.

When Monday rolled around, I felt the anxiousness bubbling up inside me. Partially giving into the worries, I messaged Jean, asking him how he was feeling. He seemed to see through the question, though, as he just responded saying ‘I’m fine. Already on my way to school for it. Don’t worry.’

I hesitated a little before writing back.

‘Okay. Just do your best. We can go chill somewhere after if you want.’ -EJ

'…'

'…'

‘Maybe.’ -JK

Okay. He was definitely still mad at me.

I had planned on asking Armin to give me a lift up so I would be there in time to see Jean before the test, but that idea crumbled up when I found out Armin was staying home ill for the day. It was probably for the best, though, anyway. I doubted Jean would want to see me beforehand.

I went ahead and got dressed before making my way up to school, at least wanting to try to catch him after the test. When I got there, I headed straight to Ackerman’s class, my brows furrowing together a little in confusion when I saw the door wide open and the student’s seats all empty. There was no way Jean was already done.

“Ah, Eren, good to see you.”

I glanced over to the teacher from where I stood in the doorway, looking his face over in a hope of understanding the situation. When that revealed nothing, I gave in and just asked.

“Did Jean already finish the test?”

“If by ‘finished’ you mean that he’s done with it, then yes.”

“What do you mean?”

The ravenette hummed. “Well, he came in, sat down to take the test, then barely got any further than writing his name,” he said, walking over to hand me a sheet of paper. “He walked out after only five minutes.”

I opened up the question booklet, frowning a little when I saw that the only writing inside was a few scribbles on the first page of questions. I didn’t want to have to deal with what Ackerman had to say about the trip or my tutoring, so I just turned on my heal and left the building, pulling my phone from my pocket as I walked.

I immediately called Jean and, to be honest, I couldn’t tell if it was because I was worried or if it was because I was mad. The first time I called, it just rang until it went to voicemail. I was almost off school grounds when I called the second time, only stopping in my place when I heard the familiar ringtone go off at the back of the sixth form parking lot.

I lowered the device from my ear when I turned the corner, finding Jean sitting on the hood of his car with a water bottle in hand. He didn’t look up as I approached him, instead just keeping his gaze set down as he had some of his drink.

I stayed silent as I closed the space between us, moving to sit beside him. We were both quiet for a few moments before I spoke up.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Another moment of quiet.

“Are you okay?” I asked, and when he made no move to respond I just continued talking. “What happened in there? Ackerman gave me your paper. You know way more than this.”

Jean took the paper from me, glancing it over for a second before folding it up and shoving it in the back pocket of his jeans.

“I just wasn’t feeling it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning forward a little to get a better look at his expression. He breathed out a sigh, and I frowned as the familiar stench of alcohol came with it. My gaze switched to his bottle, which I quickly grabbed off of him to hold up to my nose.

“Are you fucking serious?” I started, standing up to glare down at him. “You’re drinking? /Now?/“

He reached over to take the bottle, his eyes narrowing into slits when I moved it back from his grasp. “I just wanted to take the edge off,” he said, he teeth gritted together.

“Right, so you just /happened/ to have a water bottle filled with vodka hanging around,” I snapped, unbelieving as to what was happening. “What, were you drinking before the test as well? Do you seriously not care that much?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” I said, still feeling fired up but trying not to seem angry. I took a step closer. “What’s up with you? We’ve barely spoken the past week and even when we have you’ve been so off.”

He leaned against the car again, his arms folded and his gaze set on the ground. “It’s not important.”

“Clearly, it is,” I said, looking him over a moment before sighing. “Listen, I get it if you don’t want to talk, but it might help. You can’t just keep…” I gave another sigh, glancing down at the bottle. “You can’t just keep doing this. It’s not going to help.”

We went quiet again, then. Jean continued to stare blankly at the ground, leaving me to stand nervously beside him. I’d almost given up hope on him saying anything when he finally responded, his voice timid.

“I just don’t want to be here anymore.”

I stared at him for a moment, not saying anything. The quietness of his words scared me, and I had to hesitate before replying.

“At school?”

He shook his head, his body slouching as he visibly shrunk in on himself. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

I nodded, shifting my weight a little before moving to sit back down beside him. I reached over, wordlessly taking his hand in mine and giving a light squeeze, which he returned a few moments later.

"You can talk to me," I reminded quietly. "I want to be there for you."

He nodded, though the action was so small it was almost unnoticeable. His words reflected his body, coming out so low that it was almost a whisper.

"The call I got when I left the cafe last week was about my mum."

My eyes widened. "Is she-?"

"She's fine," he said, clearly knowing that I had assumed the worst. "I mean, physically, she's fine. She just... Well, there was an incident."

"You don't have to go into detail about it," I said, my voice surprisingly soft. "Unless you want to, of course."

He leaned against me, moving his gaze to rest on our hands. "It's just shitty, I guess."

"I know."

"I'm sorry I fucked up the test. I know how important that trip is to you."

"It's okay," I assured. I didn't want him to apologise for it. "I'm just glad you're here."


	15. Birthday Boy

“Eren, come /on/, get up.”

I gave a groan of protest as the covers were pulled away from me, the cold air hitting my skin straight after. I buried my head into Jean's pillow, curling my legs up to my chest as I did so.

“I told you I don’t want to do anything,” I murmured, my words muffled against the fabric.

“You can’t spend your birthday feeling depressed just because Mr Ass-fuck won't put your name back on the list.”

“I can and I will,” I said, breathing out a huff when I felt the weight of him beside me. I turned over, my body still curled up as I glanced up at him. “And I don’t get why you’re suddenly so wanting to leave the house.”

He sighed, shifting over so he was lying down beside me. He looked me over for a moment before turning on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

“You’ve still got the interview with them. You’ll get in.”

“I’m just worried I’ll fuck it up,” I said quietly. I felt bad for moping around when the whole incident with Jean’s mother was less than two weeks ago, but I couldn’t stop thinking about university. “Do we really have to go out today?”

He shrugged. “I just think it would be good for us both.”

I closed my eyes, staying quiet for a moment before breathing out a sigh and shuffling closer. “Okay,” I agreed, resting my head on his shoulder and slinking an arm over his body. “Not yet, though. I just want to stay like this for a bit.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, slipping an arm around me, his fingers tracing light circles on my back.

We stayed like that for awhile, neither of us saying a word. I think I might have almost slipped off to sleep a few times, though I really wasn’t sure.

Eventually, I sat up, tugging at Jean’s hand so he could do the same. He offered the faintest smile, which I tiredly returned before slowly moving off the bed. I got changed into my jeans and sweater, not paying too much attention to Jean’s obvious stares.

When I turned back around, he was standing at my side, his hand slipping into mine. “Come on, I’ll make you your coffee before we head out.”

“Woah, I wish it was my birthday every day,” I said jokingly, before smiling and giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiled, and started walking with me downstairs to the kitchen.

When we got there, my attention drew to one of the countertops, my brows raising as Jean let go of me and casually went on to make my drink. Wordlessly, I made my way over to the counter, picking up an envelope with my name on it. My gaze drifted off to the blue gift bag that had been placed beside it, which had tissue paper sticking out of the top.

“I told you not to get me anything,” I sighed, looking back over to Jean. He just shrugged, his arms crossed over his body as he leaned back against the counter, staring down at the kettle.

“It’s nothing fancy.”

Nodding, I decided not to complain, opening up the card he’d given me. I couldn’t help but smile as I tugged it out of the envelope, my eyes running over the words ‘For My Boyfriend’ that went over its cover. Blood rushed to my cheeks as I opened it up, and I knew I was blushing.

‘To Eren,

Happy Birthday, you dork. I hope you have a good day.

Thank you for being there for me. I don’t deserve you.

Jean

xx’

There was a small doodle under the writing, as well. He’d drawn the both of us together, holding hands. Beside us were speech bubbles, and I laughed as I read them.

‘Your hands are sweaty’ -Jean

‘Shut up’ -Eren

“You’re a fucking dork,” I said, looking up at Jean with a smile as I made my way over to him. He didn’t say anything as I pulled him into a hug, instead just silently wrapping his arms around me. He only spoke when I finally pulled away.

“Now, open your present.”

I rolled my eyes, still smiling. “Alright, alright,” I said, placing the card down and picking up the bag. After ruffling around the tissue paper for a moment, I felt something soft, and I gave a quiet hum as I pulled it out of the bag.

My eyes widened slightly as I stared down at the red fabric, my fingers running lightly across it.

“Do you like it?" he asked. "I thought it would be nice, since you’re always stealing my clothes because you’re too cold and everything,” he added, his gaze lowering to the scarf in my hand. “Mikasa told me you had one like this when you were little.”

“I did,” I confirmed, my eyes still stuck on the familiar item. “My mum gave it to me, actually. I’d wear it all the time. I still don’t know what happened to it.” I breathed out a content sigh, shaking out any memories in my head and looking back up at Jean, a smile on my face. “I love it. Thank you.”

His lips curled up a little before he moved over, stepping closer to give me a gentle kiss before carefully taking the scarf from my grip and wrapping it around my neck. I couldn’t help but feel warmth at the feeling, only able to associate positive thoughts with the item. It was a comfort that I didn’t know that I needed.

Jean held onto my hand, giving it a light squeeze. “I’m gonna go grab a few things. You just drink up your coffee and I’ll be back down soon, yeah?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

By the time Jean returned, I was mostly finished with my coffee, only leaving a few drops at the bottom. He offered a smile before saying, “ready?” I nodded, and he led the way out of the house and to his car.

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“I’m taking you out for breakfast-“

“It’s, like, half two. It’s not even /lunch/ anymore.”

“Fine. I’m taking you out for a late lunch,” he corrected, “and then Armin and Mikasa want to see you, so we can go meet them somewhere.”

I sighed, slumping back in my seat. “Do we have to?”

He raised his brows, glancing over at me before back at the road. “You don’t want to?”

“I… I don’t know,” I said, looking down and fiddling with the ends of my scarf. “I know I should but… I don’t know. I’m just not really up for it,” I said, and when I noticed Jean’s pained expression I sat up, quickly speaking again. “Not because I’m feeling that awful or anything. I just- I mean, they don’t get it, you know? Ever since my mum, whenever something even remotely bad happens, they give me this pitying look and I can’t stand it.”

I still hadn’t seen them since I was officially told by Ackerman that I was off the trip. Hell, I’d barely even seen them at all since Jean's test on Monday.

“Well… Okay,” he said, giving a short nod. “What do you wanna do instead?”

“Something that’s not here,” I mumbled, before sighing and shaking my head a little. “No, fuck, we should go see them.”

“You don’t have to make your mind up just yet,” he assured, parking the car before looking over to me. “Though, if you need something to ease your mind, we could always go grab-“

“We’re not drinking,” I interrupted, getting out of the car. Neither of us said any more on the subject, then, as we made our way to the cafe Jean was taking me to.

It ended up being really nice. The atmosphere was so calming, though I did make fun of Jean a little at how much of a hipster he looked for going there.

The food was good, too. Jean and I both got the same - a bacon bagel and some more coffee. By the time we’d finished eating, I’d managed to get my thoughts together, deciding to go and meet up with the others like Jean had planned. If Jean was going to force himself to get out the house and enjoy himself, then I had no plan on doing any different.

We all ended up just heading to my place, with Jean and I getting there first and the others arriving soon after. Even inside, I kept the scarf on, not wanting to give up the feeling of safety that it gave me.

The two didn’t bother knocking when they arrived, knowing already that the door was unlocked and that we were waiting for them. Jean and I glanced up from the sofa when we heard them, turning down the sound of whatever show we had switched on.

“Eren! Happy birthday,” Armin beamed, walking over and pulling me into a tight hug. Mikasa did the same after, smiling down at me before sitting on the other side of me as Jean.

“We got you gifts,” she said, handing over a few wrapped up items, as well as a couple envelopes.

“Ah, thanks, guys,” I said, taking the items as they were handed to me, before opening everything up.

The first gift was from Mikasa. It was a coffee flask, with a mauve coloured leather cover. As I opened it, she told me it was for my ‘caffeine addiction’, and I could hear Jean chuckle a little at the comment.

The other present was from Armin, and as I picked it up I could immediately tell that it was going to be a DVD. My lips curled up into a smile when I tore off the paper, my eyes scanning over the cover.

“Big Hero 6?”

Armin grinned. “Yeah. You loved it when we went to see it in the cinema,” he said, before humming softly and adding, “you cried your eyes out, too.”

“Pft, I’ve no idea what you’re on about,” I said, hopping up from the sofa and heading over to the old DVD player that was by the TV. “We’re watching this, like, right now, by the way.”

“Duh, that’s why we brought popcorn with us,” Armin said, grinning as he pulled out a couple of bags from his backpack.

“I’ll go grab the bowls,” Mikasa added.

I chuckled, moving to sit back down by Jean. I sorted out the DVD, finally playing the movie once everyone was settled back down on the couch. I swung my legs up onto the couch, happily leaning against Jean as he wrapped his arm around me.

The evening ended up going much better than expected. We all just sat together, watching movies and hanging out like we were all just old friends. Before I knew it, the sun had completely set, and Armin and Mikasa had fallen asleep on the couch beside me.

Jean stayed with me in his hold, and I couldn’t help but grin when I saw that he had a content smile as he watched whatever movie we’d moved onto. It felt so rare to see him like that - smiling, even though he didn’t think anyone else was looking. After the past couple weeks, especially, it was nice to see.

Honestly, I think it was the best gift I could have asked for.


End file.
